,V     IS":     ^ 


^  PRINCETON,    N.  J.  <5^ 


Purchased    by  the 
Mrs.    Robert   Lenox   Kennedy  Church   History   Fund. 


BX  5880  .S59  1894  c.l 
Smith,  C.  Ernest  1855-1939. 
The  old  church  in  the  new 
land 


LECTURES  ON    CHURCH    HISTORY 


THE    OLD   CHURCH 
IN    THE    NEW    LAND 

LECTURES   ON  CHURCH  HISTORY 


BY 

THE    REV.   C.   ERNEST ''smith,   M.A. 

RECTOR    OF  THE   CHURCH  OF  ST.  MICHAEL  AND  ALL  ANGELS,  BALTIMORE,  MD. 
EXAMINING   CHAPLAIN   TO   THE   BISHOP   OF   MARYLAND 


WITH     PREFACE 


THE    BISHOP    OF    MARYLAND 


NEW   YORK 
LONGMANS,    CxREEN,   AND    CO. 

AND    LONDON 
1894 


Copyright,  1894,  by 
LONGMANS,   GRKEN,   AND  CO. 


TROW    DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMFANT 

NEW   YORK 


PREFACE   BY   THE   BISHOP 
OF   MARYLAND 

The  names  given  to  books  do  not  always  give 
a  clear  idea  of  their  purpose.  The  title  of  this  lit- 
tle book,  however,  admirably  suggests  its  story. 
The  truths  are  not  new.  They  are  known  to 
scholars,  and  known  to  many  who  would  not 
claim  that  name,  but  are  only  plain  readers  and 
thinkers.  But  old  truths  need  to  be  often  told. 
Each  generation  has  to  learn  them  for  itself.  And 
the  same  old  truths  may  be  truthfully  told  in  new 
ways.  Many  who  already  love  the  Church,  and 
are  sure  of  its  identity  Avith  the  Church  which 
our  Saviour  founded,  will  hold  that  conviction 
more  firmly  and  see  more  clearly  as  this  new  tell- 
ing traces  the  course  of  its  continuous  history, 
and  throws  its  light  on  every  link  of  the  "  un- 
broken chain  "  which  binds  us  in  America,  to  the 
first  believers  in  Jerusalem. 

^'The  Old  Church  in  the  New  Land."  Most 
happily  and  clearly  the  title  tells  the  story  and  the 


VI  PREFACE 

meaning  of  the  book.  He  who  wrote  it  gained 
his  Christian  birthright,  received  his  Christian 
blessing,  and  grew  to  Christian  manhood  in  the 
old  Church  in  the  old  land.  And  it  was  at  the 
very  cradle-seat  of  England's  earliest  Church  tra- 
ditions that  he  learned  the  story  which  he  here 
tells.  Sent  in  God's  providence  to  do  missionary 
duty  in  the  new  land,  he  found  in  that  new  land 
that  same  old  Church.  In  his  own  experience 
he  verified  its  identity  ;  and  I  do  not  wonder  he 
loves  to  trace  it  out  for  others  to  see  and  under- 
stand. 

The  Church  in  America  does  not  seem  to  some 
to  have  had  a  very  long,  or  very  eventful,  or 
very  interesting  history.  It  is  little  more  than 
one  hundred  years  since  it  began  its  distinct  na- 
tional existence,  as  the  nation  itself  became  inde- 
pendent. But  the  Church  was  here  before  th^ 
nation.  Its  history  did  not  begin  with  the  na- 
tional distinctness.  The  line,  the  life,  runs  back 
unbroken,  and  claims  its  part  in  all  the  rich  story 
of  the  Mother  Church  of  England.  That  history 
is  our  history  also. 

And  it  is  well  and  helpful  that  this  identity 
should  be  brought  clearly  and  often  to  the  minds 
of  the  Church  people  in  America,  and  that  they 


PREFACE  Vii 

should  claim  and  love  every  sacred  memory  and 
glorious  incident  of  England's  Church  life  as  be- 
longing to  them  also. 

It  is  England's  Church  History  claimed  as  our 
American  heritage,  and  told  to  American  ears  as 
belonging  to  American  hearts. 

The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United 
States  of  America  is  not  a  new  Church  or  one 
lately  born.  The  civil  law  of  the  State  of  Mary- 
land so  affirms,  when,  soon  after  the  War  of  Inde- 
pendence, it  was  enacted  that  the  vestry  of  each 
parish  *'  shall  have  good  titles  and  estates  in  all 
property  heretofore  belonging  to  the  Church  of 
England,  now  called  '  The  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  Maryland.'  "  And  in  another  place  it 
speaks  of  ''  The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
heretofore  called  the  Church  of  England." 

The  life,  then,  of  this  Church  in  America  is  the 
continuation  of  the  life  begun  in  apostolic  days 
in  England. 

"  Coelum,  non  animum  mutant  qui  trans  mare  currunt." 

To  trace  the  links  of  that  continuity — to  make 
churchmen  feel  sure  through  them  of  an  aposto- 
lic origin — to  help  them  know  that  this  is  no  late- 
born    sect — but   that   in    it    we    are    in    the   very 


Vlll  PREFACE 

''  fellowship  of  the  Apostles,"  is  the  purpose  of 
this  book.  We  too  often  read  English  history, 
and  especially  English  Church  history,  as  if  it 
were  foreign  history.  But  their  glories  are  ours. 
It  is  our  own  early  history  which  we  thus  trace 
back  to  its  real  beginning. 

The  chapters  of  this  book  were  first  given  as 
lectures  in  the  course  of  parochial  Instruction. 
The  immediate  and  permanent  and  studious  in- 
terest awakened  in  those  who  heard  them  was 
evident  proof  of  their  helpfulness. 

I  have  often  been  asked  to  name  books  for 
family  reading,  or  sermons  and  lectures  which 
would  be  both  interesting  and  instructive  for  the 
use  of  lay-readers.  This  story  of  "  The  Old 
Church  in  the  New  Land  "  may  well  be  added  to 
any  such  list. 

William  Paret, 

BisJiop  of  Maryland. 


CONTENTS 


]'AGE 

I,  The  Source  of  all  Ciirlstianity,      ,        .        .        .       i 


11.  The  Channel  of  American  Christl\nity, 
III.  Our   First    Missionary    Heroes,    SS.  Patrick    and 

COLUMBA 


IV.  The   First    Italian    Mission   to   England,    in   the 
Sixth  Century,      .        . 

V.  Our  Church  Under  the  Saxons, 

\T.  The  First  Primate  of  all  England, 

VII.  Our  Church  under  the  Normans, 

VIII.  The  Babylonian  Bondage,  . 

IX.  An  Anglican  Elijah, 

X.  The  End  of  Captivity, 

XI.  The  Restoration, 

XIT.  The  Nag's  Head  Fable.     An  Apocryphal  Story, 

XIII.  Shakespeare  a  Son  of  the  Reformation, 

XIV.  Puritanism, 

XV.  The  Church  of  England  in  Our  Times,  . 

XVI.  America,  the  Heritage  of  Our  Church, 


15 

35 

53 
73 
89 

105 
123 
143 
157 
173 
193 
211 
229 

245 
263 


I. 

THE    SOURCE   OF    ALL    CHRISTIANITY 


I. 

THE    SOURCE    OF    ALL   CHRISTIANITY 

"  The  church  of  the  Uving  God,  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the 
truth." — I  Timothy  iii,  15. 

A  KNOWLEDGE  of  some  of  the  chief  facts  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  has  become  almost  a  neces- 
sity to  every  churchman ;  and  there  are,  con- 
sequently, few  subjects  upon  which  lecture-ser- 
mons can  more  appropriately  be  preached  in  our 
day  than  on  Church  History,  especially  on  the 
history  of  our  own  branch.  To  some  persons 
this  may  seem  a  very  unedifying  kind  of  a  sub- 
ject ;  they  prefer  what  is  known  as  "  Gospel 
preaching  ;  "  they  have  indeed  no  interest  in  any 
other  ;  and  if,  unfortunately,  they  are  compelled 
to  listen  to  any  other,  they  imagine  there  is  no 
help  in  it,  and  are  none  the  better  for  it,  but 
rather  the  worse.  Now  there  is  no  more  satis- 
factory argument  for  a  course  of  sermons  on  the 
Church  than  that  which  is  furnished  by  the  ex- 
istence of  this  very  class  of   Christians.     Surely 


4  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

they  are  themselves  the  best  evidence  we  can 
have  that  the  Church  has  been  remiss  in  its  duty, 
for  the  real  cause  of  such  indifference  is  want  of 
knowledge.  Many  do  not  know  even  the  sim- 
plest and  most  important  facts  about  their 
Church.  This  want  of  knowledge  is  indeed  sin- 
gular. It  is  unlike  the  usual  conduct  of  men  on 
other  occasions  and  in  other  affairs.  If  we  are  de- 
scended from  distinguished  fathers  and  mothers, 
and  are  entitled  to  armorial  quarterings  and  hon- 
orable distinctions,  we  are  not  unmindful  of  the 
fact,  and  we  do  not  wish  others  to  be  unmindful 
of  it.  But  in  our  ecclesiastical  life,  with  such  dis- 
tinguished ancestry  as  ours  is,  it  is  simply  mar- 
vellous that  some  of  us  take  no  pride  in  their  spir- 
itual pedigree ;  although  we  justly  claim  to  be 
members  of  that  branch  of  Christ's  Church  which 
has  an  origin  as  venerable  as  any,  and  w^hich  has 
had  a  record  honorable  beyond  any,  and  which 
has  the  prospect  of  a  still  more  glorious  future, 
for  it  has  its  hold  to-day  upon  the  hearts  and  con- 
sciences of  the  most  influential  and  intellectual 
portion  of  the  most  vigorous  and  progressive  of 
all  the  nations  of  the  modern  world.  It  is  a 
Church,  indeed,  the  mention  of  whose  name 
should  cause  a  glow  of  pardonable  pride  to  thrill 


THE   SOURCE   OF  ALL   CHRISTIANITY  5 

the  veins  of  everyone  of  its  members,  as  he  utters 
the  words  of  thankfuhiess  and  praise,  ''  Thank 
God,  I  am  a  member  of  that  Church  !  "  "  Bap- 
tized, catechised,  confirmed  in  her,  I  rejoice  in 
my  inheritance  ;  and  I  thankfully  accept  at  her 
hands  the  Bread  of  Life  distributed  by  her." 

We  speak,  then,  of  the  Anglo  -  American 
Church,  that  Church  which  in  Britain  and  the 
dependencies  of  Britain  is  called  the  Anglican 
Church,  and  in  these  United  States  of  America 
The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  which  is  in- 
deed the  same  Church.  But  if  we  are  to  under- 
stand the  subject  we  must  define  our  terms. 
What  do  we  mean  by  the  Church  ?  What  is  the 
Church?  We  speak,  it  is  true,  in  the  creed  of 
the  "  holy  Catholic  Church  "  and  profess  our 
belief  in  it ;  but  are  we  sure  that  we  have  an  in- 
telligent grasp  of  the  subject,  so  that  we  can  give 
to  every  one  that  asks  us  a  reasonable  explanation 
of  this  article  of  our  faith?  What,  then,  is  the 
Church  ?  Two  theories  which  we  hold  to  be  un- 
tenable at  once  confront  us.  First,  the  Roman 
theory.  According  to  this  the  Catholic  Church 
is  coextensive  with  the  authority  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome.  Where  the  authority  of  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  is  not,  there  is  not  the   Catholic  Church. 


6  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH    HISTORY 

According  to  this  idea  the  great  Greek  com- 
munion with  its  millions  of  adherents,  and  the 
great  Anglican  communion  with  its  millions,  and 
with  its  glorious  opportunities  and  unrivalled 
past,  are  both  mere  delusions  ;  by  it  they  are  not 
what  they  claim  to  be,  integral  portions  of  the 
holy  Catholic  Church.  This  theory  we  deem 
worthy  of  no  serious  consideration. 

Secondly,  comes  the  theory  of  various  Protes- 
tant religious  bodies  in  Western  Christendom, 
that  there  is  no  one  duly  consecrated  and  organ- 
ized body  with  an  outward,  visible,  and  objective 
existence.  When  they  speak  of  the  Church  they 
mean  the  general  company  of  true  believers 
spread  throughout  the  world,  without  any  direct 
reference  to  external  relationships ;  and  only  in 
the  sense  that  ''  the  Church  "  is  an  invisible  body, 
consisting  of  such  persons,  whose  names  are 
known  only  to  God,  will  they  speak  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  at  all.  According  to  this  theory 
Christ  founded  no  visible  Church  which  could 
accurately  be  spoken  of  as  a  body  or  a  society 
having  a  true  corporate  existence,  endowed  with 
powers  of  self-government,  invested  with  distinct 
privileges  and  blessings,  and  clothed  with  certain 
responsibilities.     If  this  view  be  correct,  Christ's 


THE   SOURCE   OF   ALL   CHRISTIANITY  7 

Church  is  little  better,  if  anything,  than  an  incor- 
poreal idea,  having  a  merely  subjective  existence. 
This  theory  need  not  trouble  us  more  than  the 
first ;  Christ  came  not  to  found  an  idea. 

Now,  in  opposition  to  these  two  theories,  our 
Church  in  her  Prayer  Book  and  other  formularies 
proclaims  that  there  is  a  Church  with  as  distinct 
and  corporate  existence  as  ever  even  any  Bishop 
of  Rome  dreamed  of;  but  she  asserts  that  its 
limits  are  far  wider  than  the  widest  of  Rome's 
pretensions  ;  and  she  further  proclaims  that  what 
is  and  what  is  not  a  part  of  this  Church  is  simply 
a  question  of  historical  evidence. 

Let  us  see  if  she  is  warranted  in  her  statements 
by  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament. 

It  was  one  great  purpose  of  Our  Lord's  com- 
ing to  earth  to  found  a  Church.  Christ  came,  of 
course,  pre-eminently  to  be  a  sacrifice  for  sin,  and 
also  to  be  an  example  of  godly  life ;  but  behind 
these  objects  there  lay  another.  He  came  to 
found  a  visible  church,  to  establish  a  visible  king- 
dom ;  not  merely  to  make  men  good,  or  to  preach 
a  crusade  against  sin,  but  to  organize  a  society 
which,  clothed  with  unseen  powers,  endowed  with 
perpetual  life,  with  definite  aims  and  a  definite 
work,  should  conquer  the  world  for  Him,  so  that 


8  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

the  kingdoms  of  this  world  should  become  the 
kingdoms  of  Our  Lord  and  His  Christ.  Christ  so 
spoke  of  this  Church  or  kingdom  that  we  cannot 
but  regard  it  as  a  true  kingdom  in  all  essential 
points.  We  cannot  think  of  it  as  being  merely  or 
as  at  all  a  theoretical  bond  of  union,  a  mere  sen- 
timental growth,  an  intangible  idea  without  a 
dwelling-place,  a  disembodied  truth,  a  mere  col- 
lection of  floating  theories,  a  thing  without  shape, 
or  form,  or  substance,  but  a  definite  organization ; 
called  spiritual  not  as  opposed  to  visible  and 
real,  but  as  describing  better  the  nature  of  its 
work  and  the  sphere  of  its  influence  ;  and  of  this 
kingdom  Christ  Himself  is  the  only  true  King. 

Now  Jesus  was  constantly  looking  forward 
when  on  earth  to  the  early  establishment  of  this 
kingdom.  He  spoke  of  it  to  His  disciples,  spoke 
of  it  as  something  yet  close  at  hand.  Observe  a 
few  of  His  utterances.  He  began  His  ministry 
by  calling  men  to  repentance  in  language  which 
must  have  reminded  His  hearers  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist, and  even  of  Daniel  the  prophet:  ''Repent  ye, 
for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  The 
kingdom  prophesied  by  Daniel  was  near,  but  it 
had  not  yet  come.  It  was  not  yet  in  the  world  ; 
its  foundations  had  not  been  laid. 


THE   SOURCE   OF   ALL    CHRISTIANITY  9 

Witness,  again,  the  Lord's  words  to  Simon 
Peter,  St.  Matthew  xvi.  18,  19:  "And  I  say  also 
unto  thee,  That  thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this 
rock  I  Avill  build  my  church  ;  and  the  gates  of 
hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.  And  I  will  give 
unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven : 
and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth  shall  be 
bound  in  heaven :  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt 
loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven."  Here 
the  Church  of  the  one  verse  is  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven  of  the  other.  We  are  accustomed  to 
speak  of  the  history  of  the  Church,  but  it  is  evi- 
dent that  it  would  be  equally  correct  to  speak  of 
the  history  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Witness 
the  parables  of  Our  Lord  given  by  St.  Matthew 
in  chapter  xiii. :  ''  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
likened  unto  a  man  which  sowed  good  seed  in  his 
field  ;  but  while  men  slept,  his  enemy  came  and 
sowed  tares  among  the  wheat,  and  went  his  way." 
Again  it  is  like  a  grain  of  mustard  seed ;  it  is  like 
leaven ;  it  is  like  a  net.  Then  since  they  obvi- 
ously speak  not  of  a  perfect  kingdom  but  of  an 
imperfect,  not  of  that  which  is  above  but  that 
which  is  on  earth,  since  they  do  speak  of  that 
which  has  an  outward  and  visible  existence,  such 
as  tares  and  wheat  growing  together,  saints  and 


10  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH  HISTORY 

sinners  side  by  side,  this  is  no  picture  of  the 
heaven  of  God  at  the  last,  into  which  we  are  told 
''  there  shall  nothing  enter  that  defileth  nor  work- 
eth  abomination  nor  maketh  a  lie,  but  they  only 
whose  names  are  written  in  the  book  of  life." 

Christ's  declared  intention  of  building  or  found- 
ing a  Church,  was  not,  it  is  true,  fulfilled  in 
His  own  earthly  lifetime.  He  did  indeed  lay 
down  the  laws  which  should  govern  the  kingdom. 
He  appointed  its  officers  and  gave  them  au- 
thority and  power  to  appoint  their  successors. 
He  declared  its  character,  the  nature  of  its  work 
and  its  constitution.  He  revealed  its  sanctions. 
He  spent  forty  days  on  earth  after  His  resurrec- 
tion speaking  to  His  apostles  about  it,  giving 
them  final  instructions  ;  but  when  He  went  away 
the  kingdom  about  which  He  had  spoken  was 
not  in  existence.  There  was,  indeed,  but  one 
thing  wanting.  It  was  as  if  some  beautiful 
statue,  hewn  out  of  glittering  marble  by  the  hand 
of  a  master  sculptor,  stood  before  men,  the  very 
personification  of  life,  and  yet  wanting  life.  So 
with  the  Church ;  all  was  ready,  but  the  spirit 
and  the  life  were  wanting.  Now  on  the  day  of 
the  first  Christian  Pentecost,  a.d.  33,  this  life  was 
visibly  given  and   the  saying  of  Christ  fulfilled : 


THE   SOURCE   OF   ALL   CHRISTIANITY  II 

"  Oil  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church."  On 
that  day  the  fifth  kingdom  of  Daniel's  vision  was 
ushered  into  the  world.  Then  Christ  established 
forever  the  Church  of  the  living  God,  the  pillar 
and  ground  of  the  truth.  Accordingly  after  Pen- 
tecost we  no  longer  read  of  the  Church  as  not  yet 
formed,  but  as  in  being  and  action,  as  the  mys- 
tical body  of  Christ,  into  which  men  are  to  be 
incorporated,  and  in  which  they  are  to  receive 
the  means  of  grace  and  everlasting  life. 

And  now  comes  the  all-important  and  momen- 
tous question.  Is  this  same  Church  historically  in 
the  world  to-day,  and  if  so,  where  do  we  find  it  ? 
The  first  of  these  questions  is  easily  answered. 
Christ  pledged  His  word  that  the  Church  should 
remain  unto  the  end  of  the  world,  and  we  dare 
not  do  Him  such  dishonor  as  to  presume  that 
that  word  has  fruitlessly  passed  away  or  His 
promise  become  of  none  effect. 

As  we  have  thus  answered  the  first  question 
from  Scripture,  we  would  answer  the  second  from 
the  Prayer  Book,  for  no  doctrine  of  the  Church 
is  of  any  private  interpretation.  In  her  Twenty- 
third  Article  we  read  :  *'  It  is  not  lawful  for  any 
man  to  take  upon  him  the  office  of  public  preach- 
ing or  Ministering  the  Sacraments  in  the  Congre- 


12  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

gation,  before  he  be  lawfully  called,  and  sent  to 
execute  the  same."  And  even  more  emphatic  is 
the  Preface  to  the  Ordination  Service  :  "  No  man 
shall  be  accounted  or  taken  to  be  a  lawful  Bishop, 
Priest,  or  Deacon,  in  this  Church,  or  suffered  to 
execute  any  of  the  said  functions,  except  he  be 
called,  tried,  examined,  and  admitted  thereunto, 
according  to  the  form  hereafter  following,  or 
hath  had  Episcopal  Consecration  or  Ordination." 
Wherever  there  is  the  true  ministry,  there  is  the 
Church  that  Christ  founded.  Let  us  not  fail  to 
note  what  is  the  real  question  here.  It  is  not 
whether  other  bodies  of  Christians  are  doing 
good  work,  or  whether  their  members  will  be 
saved  or  not.  With  such  questions  we  have  ab- 
solutely nothing  to  do.  We  are  concerned  only 
with  the  one  main  question  as  to  what  is  that 
very  body  that  Christ  came  to  found ;  and  we 
conceive  that  it  is  no  breach  of  charity  to' say 
that  it  is  only  where  Christ's  appointed  ministry 
is  that  this  organization  exists  ;  and  that  organi- 
zations Avhich  took  their  rise  some  fifteen  hun- 
dred years  after  Christ's  ascension  can  have  no 
shadow  of  a  claim  to  be  considered  parts  of  it. 
This  is  not  a  matter  of  doctrine,  but  of  historical 
evidence  ;  not  a  question  of  theology,  but  of  legal 


THE   SOURCE   OF   ALL   CHRISTIANITY  1 3 

proof.  Nor  is  it  an  open  question,  but  one  on 
which  the  Church  has  spoken  with  no  uncertain 
voice. 

She  emphatically  refuses  to  recognize  as  a  dis- 
tinct branch  of  herself  any  body  of  Christians 
which  has  not  this  apostolic  ministry.  For  this 
ministry,  which  she  calls  the  historic  episcopate, 
is  one  essential  test  with  her  as  to  whether  an 
ecclesiastical  organization  is  or  is  not  a  part  of 
herself ;  yet  she  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  ex- 
clusive. She  cannot  justly  be  termed  narrow- 
minded  or  bigoted.  She  holds  this  gift  as  in 
trust  for  the  world  ;  as  a  public  not  a  private 
trust.  She  refuses  it  to  none  that  worthily  seeks 
it.  But  if  some  think  otherwise,  regarding  it  as 
unnecessary,  she  has  not  a  word  of  censure.  She 
leaves  them  to  Christ.  She  regards  herself  not 
as  a  judge  over  them,  but  as  entrusted  with  sacred 
treasures  for  the  universal  benefit  of  the  children 
of  men.  That  some  count  her  spiritual  jewels  of 
little  or  no  value  is  to  her  a  subject  of  sorrow, 
but  no  power  on  earth  will  cause  her  to  admit 
that  they  have  no  need  of  these  jewels.  That  she 
may  be  misunderstood  and  misinterpreted  is  not 
strange  to  her ;  the  Master  Himself  was  misrep- 
resented  and    misunderstood  when  He  lived  on 


14  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

earth.  Meanwhile  she  goes  on  her  wa}^  pained 
sometimes  by  the  conduct  of  disloyal  sons  even 
more  than  by  the  misrepresentations  of  open  ene- 
mies ;  for  she  knows  the  truth  is  with  her,  and 
conscious  in  her  Lord's  abiding  presence  she 
clings  to  that  faith  once  for  all  delivered  to  her, 
and  continues  to  be  the  faithful  dispenser  of  the 
Word  of  God  and  of  His  holy  sacraments ;  and 
so  abundantly  does  she  make  real  her  right  to 
that  glorious  title,  ''  The  Church  of  the  Living 
God,  the  Pillar  and  Ground  of  the  Truth." 


IT. 


THE  CHANNEL  OF  AMERICAN 
CHRISTIANITY 


II. 


THE  CHANNEL  OF   AMERICAN 
CHRISTIANITY 

"  Look  unto  the  rock  whence  ye  are  hewn." — Isaiah  li.  i. 

These  words  were  a  summons  to  the  Jews  to 
look  back  amid  their  trials  and  difficulties  to  the 
true  source  of  all  their  life  and  the  beginning  of 
their  former  strength.  Hearken  to  me,  ye  that 
follow  after  righteousness,  ye  that  seek  the  Lord. 
Look  unto  Abraham  your  father,  and  unto  Sarah 
that  bare  you.  You  are  the  children  of  distin- 
guished parents,  do  not  be  unmindful  of  this;  do 
not  be  forgetful  of  your  birthright ;  do  not  ignore 
your  glorious  past.  Look  unto  the  rock  whence 
ye  are  hewn,  and  to  the  hole  of  the  pit  whence 
ye  are  digged.  And  as  you  rejoice  in  the  past 
and  find  strength  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
source  of  all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  what  you 
are  to-day,  rejoice  also  in  the  future — for  it  prom- 
ises to  be  even  more  glorious  ;  for  the  Lord  shall 
comfort  Zion,  He  will  comfort  all  her  waste  places, 


l8  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

and  He  will  make  her  wilderness  like  Eden,  and 
her  desert  like  the  garden  of  the  Lord.  Joy  and 
gladness  shall  be  found  therein,  thanksgiving  and 
the  voice  of  melody. 

In  a  very  different  spirit  and  from  a  far  different 
motive  we  of  the  American  Church  are  also  bidden 
to  look  unto  the  rock  whence  we  are  hewn.  And 
we  are  assured  that  we  have  not  far  to  travel  ere 
we  reach  that  rock.  We  are  sometimes  told  that 
our  Church  had  no  existence  before  Luther  and 
the  sixteenth  century;  that  Henry  VHI.  of  Eng- 
land vras  our  kingly  but  far  from  respectable 
founder  and  Queen  Elizabeth  our  ro3^al  patron ; 
and  that  thus  were  remarkably  fulfilled  for  us  the 
prophetic  words :  "  Kings  shall  be  your  nursing 
fathers,  and  Queens  your  nursing  mothers."  We 
are  thus  given  to  understand  that  as  a  Church  we 
have  no  history  before  the  sixteenth  century  ;  that 
we  are  only  disobedient  and  gainsaying  children 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  our  spiritual  mother, 
upon  whom  we  turned  our  back  at  the  time  of  the 
so-called  Reformation  in  England  ;  and  that  conse- 
quently we  are  only  a  sect  of  yesterday,  having 
no  rightful  connection  with  the  ancient  Catholic 
Church  of  Christ  of  which  we  have  fondly  but 
vainly  supposed  ourselves  to  be  a  part. 


THE   CHANNEL   OF  AMERICAN   CHRISTIANITY    1 9 

Marvellous  as  it  may  seem  to  many  of  us  there 
are  doubtless  persons  who  as  sincerely  and  stead- 
fastly believe  all  this  as  they  believe  the  Gospel 
itself.  But  we  have  not  so  read  history.  What- 
ever may  be  said  of  the  Anglo-American  Church, 
this  at  least  can  never  be  said,  with  any  show  of 
truth,  that  it  was  ever  a  part  of  the  Roman  Church  ; 
and  this  for  the  best  of  all  reasons.  The  Roman 
Church  itself  in  Britain  is  but  a  new  creation.  It 
had  no  existence  there  at  all  until  it  was  estab- 
lished by  Pius  V.  in  1570,  in  the  reign  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  It  is  only  what  it  has  been  aptly  styled 
by  the  present  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  "  the 
new  Italian  Mission,"  and  as  such  is  merely  one  of 
the  latest  born  of  the  sects  which  trouble  the 
peace  of  the  ancient  national  Church  of  the  land, 
having  no  more  connection  with  that  old  historic 
Church  than  it  has  with,  say  the  Church  on  the 
Malabar  coast  of  India,  or  the  Moravian  settle- 
ments on  the  Labrador. 

Now  we  do  not  propose  to  make  mere  asser- 
tions of  what  we  believe.  We  are  prepared  to 
submit  evidence.  The  truth  is  afraid  of  nothing. 
We  have  not  that  dread  of  history  which  found  ex- 
pression in  the  well-known  utterance  of  a  Roman 
cardinal :  ^'  Thank  God  we  have  done  with  history." 


20  LECTURES    ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

We  have  not  done  with  history,  and  we  do  not 
propose  that  its  teachings  shall  be  ignored.  To 
every  one  who  is  laboring  under  the  delusion  that 
the  American  Church  is  a  thing  of  yesterday,  and 
bids  us  look  back  to  our  rock,  we  are  ready  to 
reply  in  the  spirit  of  one  of  old :  Hast  thou  ap- 
pealed unto  history  ?     Unto  history  shalt  thou  go. 

Look  unto  the  rock  whence  ye  arc  hewn.  Our 
rock  is  Britain.  We  are  not  unmindful  of  the 
bond  which  unites  us  to  the  Church  of  the  Apos- 
tles in  Jerusalem  ;  not  a  bond  merely  of  sympathy 
and  brotherly  love,  but  one  of  visible  and  organic 
continuity.  We  have  an  actual  share  in  the  events 
of  the  upper  room  and  in  the  doings  of  the  infant 
Church.  We  claim  a  vital  interest  in  the  first  ser- 
mon ever  preached,  the  first  synod  held,  the  first 
Gentile  converts  gathered  in.  We  think  of  those 
things  as  the  very  beginnings  of  our  Christianity, 
the  first-fruits  of  our  Church.  But  thinking  mere- 
ly of  our  separate  national  and  ecclesiastical  ex- 
istence as  but  one  portion  of  the  holy  Catholic 
Church,  we  look  to  Britain  as  the  rock  whence 
we  are  hewn,  as  the  rock  from  whence  flows  to 
us  that  living  stream  which  makes  glad  the  city 
of  God. 

Now  what  Britain  was  in  those  early  days  we 


THE   CHANNEL   OF   AMERICAN   CHRISTIANITY   21 

well  know.  Covered  with  dense  forests  through 
which  wild  beasts  roamed  and  sought  their  prey, 
the  country  presented  much  the  same  appearance 
as  many  a  wild  and  uncivilized  land  to-day.  The 
inhabitants,  clothed  in  skins  and  miserably  shel- 
tered, were  ruled  by  religious  teachers  called 
Druids,  whose  religion  comprised  belief  in  a  Su- 
preme Deity,  and  the  immortality  and  transmi- 
gration of  souls.  At  times  sacrifices  were  offered 
in  open-air  temples,  surrounded  by  groves  of  oak- 
trees  or  circles  of  immense  stones.  On  national 
occasions  the  Druids  made  immense  images  of 
wicker-work,  which  they  filled  with  unfortunate 
human  beings  and  barbarously  offered  up  as  burnt- 
offerings. 

It  is  some  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  since  I 
stood  within  one  of  these  open-air  temples  in  Wilt- 
shire, on  Salisbury  Plain.  The  sight  was  solemn 
and  even  weird  in  the  extreme.  For  miles  around 
extended  the  absolutely  level  plain.  Far  off  in 
one  direction  one  could  see  the  huge  mounds 
which  are  said  to  have  been  the  burying-places 
of  British  chiefs.  Looking  out  over  that  lonely 
plain  one  felt  himself  carried  back  two  thousand 
years.  There,  in  an  almost  perfect  circle,  were 
stones  so  ponderous  and  vast  that  one  could  but 


22  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

wonder  by  what  means  they  had  been  transported 
across  that  grassy  plain.  These  stones,  oblong 
in  shape,  were  standing  on  end  ;  whilst  across  the 
tops  of  some  of  them  still  rested  similar  stones, 
though  some  were  fallen  to  the  ground.  A  short 
distance  away  was  to  be  seen  one  stone  standing 
all  alone  in  solitary  state  and  grandeur,  and  the 
old  shepherd  who  watched  the  place  informed  us 
that  once  every  year  in  the  days  of  the  Druids, 
when  the  sun's  rays  first  gilded  the  top  of  that 
stone  as  seen  from  a  certain  point  within  the 
temple,  the  dreadful  sacrifices  began  and  the  air 
was  filled  with  the  shrieks  of  dying  men. 

But  the  day  came  when  the  reign  of  the  Druids 
was  over.  In  the  )^ear  of  Our  Lord  43,  Claudius 
Caesar  invaded  Britain,  and  soon  afterward  the 
Druids  were  swept  away.  In  the  track  of  the 
Roman  legions,  there  followed  Christian  mission- 
aries. The  sounds  of  war,  the  shouts  of  them  that 
strive  for  the  mastery,  and  the  scenes  of  blood- 
shed were  followed  by  the  Gospel  of  Peace  : 

"  the  Julian  spear 
A  way  first  opened,  and  with  Roman  chains 
The  tidings  came  of  Jesus  crucified." 

It  was,   indeed,   a  blessed   change,   and  destined 


THE   CHANNEL   OF   AMERICAN    CHRISTIANITY   23 

to  work  far  greater  changes  and  accomplish  far 
more  lasting  and  glorious  results.  Well  may 
every  Christian  joyfully  repeat  after  the  prophet 
the  words  which  occur  in  the  very  next  chapter: 
"  How  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet 
of  him  that  bringeth  good  tidings,  that  publisheth 
peace  ;  that  bringeth  good  tidings  of  good,  that 
publisheth  salvation  ;  that  saith  unto  Zion,  Thy 
God  reigneth  ! " 

Now  WHERE  did  these  first  preachers  of  the 
Gospel  in  Britain  come  from  and  who  were  they? 
The  question  has  been  often  asked  and  never  an- 
swered satisfactorily.  It  is,  indeed,  a  hard  ques- 
tion. We  must  frankly  own  that  the  story  of 
these  first  missionaries  is  wrapped,  as  the  tops  of 
some  of  our  lofty  mountains  are  wrapped,  in  an 
impenetrable  shroud  of  mists  and  clouds.  There 
are  traditions,  some  of  them  very  beautiful,  which 
tell  us  of  those  early  days.  Would  that  we  could 
implicitly  believe  them!  Like  the  will -of -the - 
wisp,  they  shine  out  of  the  thick  darkness,  and 
we  fain  would  follow  them  ;  but  we  dare  not.  We 
cannot  trust  them.  Yet  we  are  glad  to  have 
them ;  they  may  be  true,  and  if  so,  lovely  indeed 
is  the  story  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity 
into  Britain. 


24  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

But  whether  true  or  not,  we  feel  that  they  pro- 
claim one  thing  with  no  uncertain  voice ;  they  tell 
of  the  early  founding  of  the  Church  there.  They 
show  how  the  Church  was  planted  at  a  time  when, 
if  not  the  very  apostles  themselves,  at  least  some 
taught  directly  by  them  were  the  missionary  he- 
roes of  the  Church. 

The  traveller  standing  on  the  spot  where 

"  The  castled  crag  of  Drachenfels 
Looks  o'er  the  wide  and  winding  Rhine," 

sees  a  beautiful  sight.  Far  below  at  his  feet  lies 
the  Rhine,  and  as  he  looks  down  the  river  he  sees 
its  broad  stream  sweeping  past  the  city  of  Bonn 
with  its  university  and  time-worn  castles,  and  on 
by  Cologne,  whose  cathedral  is  one  of  the  noblest 
specimens  of  Gothic  architecture  in  Europe,  and 
then  on  past  Coblentz,  over  which  towers  the 
frowning  fortress  of  Ehrenbreitstein,  until  it 
rushes  into  the  Moselle,  and  then  the  Rhine  and 
Moselle  flow  on  together  as  one  mighty  river  to 
the  boundless  ocean.  But  as  he  looks  in  the  op- 
posite direction  whence  the  river  takes  its  rise, 
different,  but  still  strikingly  beautiful,  is  the 
scene.  Far,  far  away,  like  gleaming  coils  of  sil- 
ver, the  river  is  lying,  until  one    can  follow  •  its 


THE   CHANNEL   OF   AMERICAN    CHRISTIANITY    25 

course  no  farther.  On  the  distant  horizon  the 
mists  gather  and  no  eye  can  pierce  them,  no  glass 
can  shorten  the  distance  or  show  what  lies  be- 
yond those  thin  mists  which  gather  in  the  far-off 
distance.  Only  in  thought  can  the  traveller  fol- 
low the  course  of  the  stream  till  he  stands  in 
fancy  before  its  rocky  bed,  far  up  in  the  everlast- 
ing hills,  whence,  clear  as  crystal,  it  issues  forth, 
till,  by  and  by,  gathering  force  and  volume,  it  be- 
comes the  mighty  river,  passing  towering  fortress 
and  lowly  cottage,  passing  busy  city  and  quiet 
hamlet  till  it  falls  into  the  sea.  So  methinks  it  is 
with  the  British  Church.  We  can  follow  it  for  a 
while  as  it  rolls  past,  first,  this  ancient  castle,  and 
then  that  bold  headland — but  there  comes  a  time 
and  a  place  where  we  can  follow  it  no  farther. 
But  the  purity  of  the  source  we  cannot  doubt,  as 
we  behold  the  river  itself. 

We  admit,  then,  that  the  origin  of  the  British 
Church  is  lost  amid  the  mists  and  shadows  of  tra- 
ditions. What  are  these  traditions?  It  may  be 
sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  mention  two. 

I.  There  is  the  story,  of  which  most  people  who 
know  anything  at  all  about  ecclesiastical  history 
have  heard,  that  St.  Paul  himself  was  the  first 
preacher  of  the  Gospel  in  Britain.      Between  St. 


26  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Paul's  first  and  second  imprisonments  at  Rome 
there  are  eight  years  of  the  Apostle's  life  during 
which  the  Acts  of  the  i\postles  fail  to  reveal  to  us 
the  scene  of  his  apostolic  labors.  When  we  read 
St.  Paul's  letter  to  the  Romans  we  see  that  he  pur- 
posed a  visit  into  Spain.  And  there  are  not  want- 
ing indications  in  the  New  Testament  itself  that 
this  visit  was  paid,  and  that  it  was  extended  even 
into  Gaul.  But  that  he  ever  paid  a  visit,  or  ever 
meditated  a  visit,  to  the  islands  beyond,  we  have, 
of  course,  not  the  slightest  indication  in  the  New 
Testament.  How  then  came  the  tradition  (that  he 
he  did)  to  be  so  widely  spread  and  so  universally 
believed?  It  is  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  Cle- 
ment of  Rome  (whom  the  Roman  Catholics  claim 
as  an  infallible  Pope)  expressly  says:  "Our  be- 
loved brother  Paul  preached  the  Gospel  in  the  ut- 
most bounds  of  the  west;  "  and  in  part  to  the  fact 
that  Claudia  and  Pudens  and  Linus,  mentioned 
by  St.  Paul  in  his  letter  to  Timothy,  are  thought 
to  have  been  British  Christians.  There  is  certainly 
nothing  impossible  in  the  tradition,  but  w^e  build 
nothing  upon  it.  Yet  it  is  infinitely  more  worthy 
of  belief  than  the  tradition,  resting  upon  no  foun- 
dation at  all,  that  St.  Peter  was  ever  Bishop  of 
Rome. 


THE   CHANNEL   OF   AMERICAN    CHRISTIANITY    2/ 

2.  On  a  par  with  the  fond  delusion  of  our 
Roman  brethren  that  St.  Peter  was  their  first 
Bishop,  is  the  tradition  which  tells  us  that  Joseph 
of  Arimathea  was  the  father  of  British  Christi- 
anity. The  Jews,  it  is  ^aid,  having  a  special  en- 
mity against  SS.  Philip,  Lazarus,  Martha,  Mary, 
and  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  banished  them.  In 
their  exile  they  arrived  at  Marseilles,  where  SS. 
Philip  and  Lazarus  remained,  but  St.  Joseph  was 
sent,  with  twelve  companions  and  the  holy  women, 
to  Britain.  They  landed  on  the  southwest  coast 
and  made  their  way  to  Avalon,  now  Glastonbury, 
bearing  with  them  the  Holy  Grail  {i.e.,  the  cup  or 
chalice  wherein  Our  Lord  consecrated  the  w^ine 
and  water  at  the  institution  of  the  Eucharist). 
Here  they  preached  to  the  people,  and  St.  Joseph, 
to  confirm  the  truthfulness  of  their  preaching, 
stuck  into  the  ground  his  staff  of  thorn,  which 
forthwith  bloomed  like  Aaron's  rod,  and  grew 
into  a  tree,  which  thereafter  blossomed  at  every 
Christmas  season.  Whereupon,  we  are  told,  the 
king  gave  them  that  land  and  allowed  them  to 
settle  there.  They  at  once  built  a  church  in  honor 
of  the  Virgin  Mary,  out  of  wattles  and  wreathed 
twigs,  which  they  plastered  w^ith  mud.  No  one, 
of  course,  believes  all  this  mythical  story,  but  this 


28  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

much  is  certain  that  no  place  in  England  has  ever 
attempted  to  rival  Glastonbury  as  the  site  of  the 
first  permanent  Christian  settlement. 

Yet  there  is  a  curious  incident  connected  with 
this  legend.  At  the  Councils  of  Pisa  and  Con- 
stance and  Basle  the  question  of  precedence  be- 
tween Ensrlish  and  French  ambassadors  was  con- 
stantly  coming  up,  and  finally  was  decided  in 
favor  of  the  English  ambassador,  on  the  ground 
that  the  English  traced  their  Christianity  to  Jo- 
seph of  Arimathea,  who  came  earlier  to  Britain 
than  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  came  to  France. 

We  may  now  leave  the  realm  of  tradition  and 
come  to  actual  historical  testimony.  It  is  a  rec- 
ognized fact  to-day  that  the  earliest  unquestion- 
able statement  of  the  existence  of  Christianity  in 
Britain  is  in  TertuUian's  work  against  the  Jews. 
This  great  African  apologist  of  Christianity  wrote, 
about  A.D.  207,  as  follows :  "  For  in  whom  else 
have  all  nations  believed  but  in  Christ  ?  Parthians, 
Medes,  Elamites,  all  the  coasts  of  Spain,  the  vari- 
ous nations  of  Gaul,  and  the  portions  of  Britain 
inaccessible  to  Rome,  but  now  subject  to  Christ." 

Gildas,  the  historian  of  the  British  Church,  who 
lived  early  in  the  sixth  century,  after  describing 
the  defeat  of  the  Druids,  A.D.  61,  immediately  goes 


THE   CHANNEL   OF    AMERICAN   CHRISTIANITY    29 

on  to  say,  *'  In  the  meantime  Christ,  the  true  Sun, 
for  the  first  time  cast  his  rays,  i.e.,  the  knowledge 
of  his  laws,  on  this  island."  Here  we  have  a  de- 
finite date  assigned.  Compare  the  statements  of 
Tertullian  and  Gildas,  and  remember  that  in  a.d. 
61,  twenty  years  after  London  was  founded,  Lon- 
don was  a  flourishing  town,  w^ith  commerce  that 
connected  the  Thames  with  the  Mediterranean, 
and  you  will  see  that  it  is  quite  possible  that  the 
true  faith  could  be  published  in  Britain  and  find 
lodging  and  growth  before  the  first  century  had 
run  its  course. 

The  veil  which  hides  from  our  view  the  early 
British  Church,  thus  partially  lifted,  is  not  again, 
even  in  part,  uplifted  until  after  the  third  cen- 
tury. What  the  national  history  of  the  Church 
was  in  that  silent  period  we  know  not ;  but  the 
fourth  century  opens  with  as  grand  and  touching 
a  scene  as  is  to  be  witnessed  in  all  the  history  of 
the  Church  of  God. 

"  Lament !  for  Diocletian's  fiery  sword 
Works  busy  as  the  lightning  !  " 

During  the  Diocletian  persecution,  which  reached 
as  far  as  the  shores  of  Britain,  Alban,  a  pagan, 
a  citizen   of    Vcrulam,   sheltered    in   his  house  a 


30  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Christian  priest  who  was  fleeing  from  his  perse- 
cutors. He  had  taken  into  his  house  an  angel 
unawares.  The  sight  of  the  good  man's  life,  his 
watchings  and  prayers,  so  impressed  Alban  that 
he  became  a  convert.  On  its  becoming  known 
where  the  priest  was  concealed,  soldiers  were 
sent  to  Alban's  cottage ;  but  Alban,  putting  on  the 
priest's  cloak,  met  the  soldiers  at  the  door  and 
gave  himself  up  into  their  hands,  declaring  him- 
self to  be  a  Christian,  whilst  the  priest  made  good 
his  escape.  On  being  brought  before  the  magis- 
trate he  was  ordered  to  sacrifice,  but  this  he  re- 
fused to  do,  and  declaring  himself  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian he  was  ordered  to  execution.  A  short  dis- 
tance from  the  city  wall  he  was  beheaded,  the  first 
martyr  of  the  Church  of  God  in  Britain. 

"  Self-offered  victim  for  his  friend  he  died, 
And  for  the  Faith." 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  first  martyr  in  Britain 
should  thus  have  been  not  a  priest  or  a  bishop, 
but  a  layman,  the  first  of  a  noble  army. 

On  the  spot  where  St.  Alban  died  the  Christian 
Britons  subsequently  erected  a  church  to  his 
memorv,  which  was  replaced,  as  centuries  rolled 
by,  with  larger  and  more  commodious  structures. 


THE    CHANNEL   OF   AMERICAN   CHRISTIANITY    3 1 

Saxons  and  Danes,  as  they  became  Christians, 
each  strove  to  outvie  their  predecessors  in  the 
honor  done  to  the  memory  of  Britain's  proto- 
martyr.  To-day,  upon  that  spot,  St.  Alban's 
Cathedral  stands,  and  so  connects  the  English 
Church  of  the  present  age  with  that  first  martyr- 
dom  in  her  distant  past. 

Of  the  presence  of  Bishops  from  Britain  at  the 
Councils  of  Aries  and  Sardica,  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, and  of  the  fact  that  they  were  invited  to  be 
present  at  the  Nicene  Council,  which  gave  us  the 
Nicene  Creed,  we  may  not  now  speak;  nor  of  the 
fact  that  they  were  jealous  with  a  godly  jealousy 
for  the  Faith  once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints, 
and  refused  to  hearken  to  the  voice  of  the  charmer, 
charm  he  never  so  wisely.  Nor  can  we  further 
speak  now  of  the  glorious  missionary  work  of 
the  British  Church,  and  of  how  St.  Patrick,  the 
Apostle  of  Ireland,  was  a  British  clergyman  and 
son  of  a  British  clergyman — these  things  Ave  must 
speak  of  another  time.  To  the  average  Church- 
man the  fact  that  there  was  a  British  Church  in 
the  first  century  may  come  as  a  revelation.  His- 
tory, especially  Church  history,  has  been  so  per- 
sistently perverted  that  many  even  of  our  Church's 
own  sons  and  daughters  are  not  prepared  to  hear 


32  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  any  Church  in  Britain  until  the  arrival  of  the 
Roman  missionary,  Augustine,  at  the  close  of  the 
sixth  century.  Let  such  remember  that  we  are 
dealing  with  sober  facts.  It  may  suit  the  pur- 
poses of  controversial  writers  to  ignore  alto- 
gether some  great  events  and  to  magnify  others, 
and  call  such  distorted  teaching  history ;  but  we 
have  no  such  custom,  neither  the  Church  of 
God. 

There  is  in  Hampton  Court  Palace  Gardens,  in 
England,  a  vine.  It  is  the  oldest  vine  in  that  coun- 
try, some  say  in  the  world.  Year  after  year  it 
bears  its  clusters  of  grapes,  and  last  year  there 
were  some  1,200  clusters  clinging  to  its  venerable 
branches.  It  has  its  roots  far  down  in  the  ground, 
reaching  out  even  to  the  river  Thames,  from 
whence  it  draws  its  nourishment  and  strength. 
This  vine  is  a  true  t3'pe  of  the  British  Church ; 
that,  too,  is  bringing  forth  more  fruit  in  its  age, 
and  is  fat  and  well  liking.  It  is  still  flourishing 
like  a  palm-tree  and  spreading  abroad  like  a  cedar 
in  Libanus.  Of  that  vine  we  might  say  unto  God 
with  the  Psalmist :  "  Thou  hast  brought  a  vine 
out  of  Egypt ;  thou  hast  cast  out  the  heathen  and 
planted  it.  Thou  madest  room  for  it ;  and  when 
it  had  taken  root  it  filled  the  land.     The  hills  were 


THE   CHANNEL   OF   AMERICAN   CHRISTIANITY    33 

covered  with  the  shadow  of  it  and  the  boughs 
thereof  were  like  the  goodly  cedar-trees.  She 
stretched  out  her  branches  unto  the  sea,  and  her 
boughs  unto  the  river." 


III. 


OUR   FIRST   MISSIONARY   HEROES,   SS. 
PATRICK  AND   COLUMBA 


III. 


OUR   FIRST  MISSIONARY   HEROES,    SS. 
PATRICK  AND    COLUMBA 

"  And  they  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the 
firmament ,  and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the 
stars  for  ever  and  ever." — Daniel  xii.  3. 

Most  interesting  it  is  to  follow  the  fortunes  of 
the  Church  in  the  British  isles  from  the  martyr- 
dom of  Alban  to  the  coming  of  the  monk  Augus- 
tine ;  a  period  extending  from  the  beginning  of 
the  fourth  century  to  the  end  of  the  sixth — a  sec- 
ond period  of  three  hundred  years. 

This  period  may  be  called  the  missionary  age 
of  the  early  Church  in  the  British  isles,  wherein 
two  names  stand  out  and  shine  like  beacon-lights, 
proclaiming  that  those  who  bore  them  were  true 
princes  of  the  Church  of  God,  true  leaders  of  the 
spiritual  Israel.  These  are  St.  Patrick,  the  Apos- 
tle of  Ireland,  and  St.  Columba,  the  Apostle  of 
Scotland  ;  both  of  them  saints  who  had  been  bap- 
tized, taught,   and  catechised  in   the    old  Church 


SS  LECTURES    ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  the  land  ;  saints,  therefore,  not  of  any  foreign 
Church  but  of  that  old  Church  in  the  British 
isles  which  owed  allegiance  to  none  save  to  the 
Universal  Bishop,  the  one  Shepherd  of  our  souls, 
Christ  our  Lord.  Never  did  men  toil  more  fer- 
vently than  these  for  the  spread  of  the  kingdom 
of  Christ  on  earth,  and  never  did  men,  since  the 
days  of  St.  Paul,  have  truer,  grander,  or  more  de- 
servedly earned  success  than  these.  Of  all  men 
they  might  have  been  cheered  and  strengthened 
and  have  found  grace  to  persevere  in  those  words 
of  the  Prophet  Daniel :  *'And  they  that  be  wise 
shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament ;  and 
they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars 
for  ever  and  ever." 

But  that  age  was  distinguished  for  another  thing, 
it  was  the  age  ol  Councils.  Whilst  the  persecu- 
tions lasted,  it  had  been  impossible  to  hold  public 
Councils.  But  with  the  close  of  Diocletian's  per- 
secution, the  Church  had  rest.  Then  it  was  that 
the  Christians  had  no  longer  any  need  to  hide 
themselves  in  dens  and  caves  of  the  earth — the}^ 
no  longer  carried  their  lives  in  their  hands — they 
began  openly  to  organize  themselves  for  work. 
Accordingly,  we  shall  find  that,  following  the  ex- 
ample of  the  Apostles  and  Elders  who  came  to- 


OUR   FIRST   MISSIONARY   HEROES  39 

gether  to  Jerusalem  to  deliberate  concerning  the 
common  welfare,  the  scattered  Churches  began  to 
come  together  again  to  hold  Councils.  In  these 
Councils  the  Church  in  Britain,  as  a  true  branch 
of  Christ's  Holy  Apostolic  Church,  had  always 
open  and  undisputed  right  of  representation. 

In  the  year  3 14  such  a  Council  was  held  in  Aries, 
in  Gaul,  partly  to  consider  the  question  of  the 
growing  Donatist  schism  in  Africa,  and  partly  to 
determine  what  was  to  be  done  with  those  timid 
disciples  who  had  compromised  their  faith  in  the 
late  persecutions.  In  the  records  of  that  Council 
we  find  the  names  of  three  Bishops  from  Britain, — 
Eborius,  Bishop  of-  York ;  Restitutus,  Bishop  of 
London ;  and  Adelphius,  Bishop  of  Colonia  Civi- 
tate  Londinensium,  which  some  have  assumed  to 
be  Colchester,  others  Lincoln,  and  others  Caer- 
leon-on-Usk  in  Wales. 

In  325  a  great  General  Council  of  the  Church 
was  held  at  Nicea  under  the  presidency  of  Con- 
stantine,  the  first  Christian  emperor  —  the  first 
Ecclesiastical  Council  in  which  the  civil  authority 
took  part.  This  was  the  Council  which  gave  us 
the  substance  of  the  Nicene  Creed.  No  Bishops 
from  Britain  were  present  at  that  Council;  but 
they  had  been  invited,  and  although  not  present 


40  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

they  had  found  some  means  of  giving  their  vote, 
for  in  a  letter  of  Constantine's,  now  extant,  the 
Emperor  mentions  the  British  Bishops  as  sub- 
scribing to  the  Creed  and  to  the  ruling  of  the 
Council. 

Moreover,  in  347,  when  the  Council  of  Sardica 
was  held,  the  representatives  of  the  British  Bish- 
ops were  present,  for  Athanasius  mentions  that 
they  supported  him  against  the  errors  of  the 
Arians,  who  were,  notwithstanding  the  Council 
of  Nicea,  at  that  time  in  great  favor  at  Constan- 
tinople. 

It  is  mainly  from  such  plain  historical  and  un- 
questioned facts  that  we  know  the  Church  of 
Britain  was  not  only  an  orthodox  and  indepen- 
dent national  Church  at  that  time,  but  was  recog- 
nized as  such  by  the  Church  at  large.  Otherwise 
the  Church  at  this  period  is  like  a  landscape 
wrapped  in  fog,  across  which  some  fitful  lights 
irregularly  gleam.  Of  its  Episcopal  succession 
and  its  internal  organization  and  methods  of  work 
we  really  know  very  little.  We  know  that  it  had 
its  sacred  edifices  at  Canterbury,  at  Caerleon,  and 
at  Glastonbury.  A  few  relics  have  been  found 
which  plainly  point  to  the  Christianity  of  that 
period.     Here   and  there   some   Christian  mono- 


OUR   FIRST   MISSIONARY   HEROES  41 

gram  has  been  found,  or  coin  bearing  the  Alpha 
and  Omega,  and  here  and  there  a  gravestone  re- 
cording the  fact  that  a  Christian  man  once  slept 
below.  How  far,  however,  that  Church  had  really 
occupied  the  land  for  Christ  is  now  hidden  from 
us.  It  had,  indeed,  as  we  have  seen,  sought  to 
take  possession ;  but  it  is  a  question  how  far  it 
had  expelled  the  Canaanite  and  the  Perizzite 
from  the  land.  How  far,  too,  that  ancient  Church 
brought  the  heathen  soldiers  of  Rome  to  believe 
in  Christ,  how  far  it  leavened  the  army,  not  with 
the  old  leaven,  neither  with  the  leaven  of  malice 
and  wickedness,  but  with  the  unleavened  bread 
of  sincerity  and  truth,  this  we  do  not  know.  But 
we  may  well  believe  that  the  Church  which  tra- 
dition tells  us  gave  Linus  to  be  the  first  Bishop  of 
Rome,  did  do  all  that  it  could  to  influence  the 
common  soldiers  to  believe  in  Christ ;  and  it  may 
be  that  when  the  time  came  that  those  soldiers 
had  to  return  to  Italy  to  defend  the  Imperial 
City  itself  against  the  Gothic  invader,  many  re- 
turned as  servants  of  the  King  of  Kings  and  the 
Lord  of  Lords  ;  and  that,  as  such,  they  would  re- 
joice to  tell  their  comrades  and  their  friends  what 
they  had  learned  by  the  camp-fires  in  distant 
Britain. 


42  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

The  Roman  legions  were  withdrawn  in  410, 
and  Britain  then  practically  ceased  to  be  a  part 
of  the  Roman  Empire.  But  alas  for  the  British 
Church  !  Blood  was  again  to  flow.  Ere  half  a 
century  had  passed  away  the  pagan  Angles  came, 
and  they  and  their  kindred  Saxons  continued 
coming  for  the  next  one  hundred  and  fifty  years. 
Fiercely  they  fought  with  the  old  inhabitants  of 
the  land  for  the  mastery,  and  little  by  little  they 
conquered  and  gained  the  country  for  them- 
selves. To  the  British  Christians  the  evil  days 
of  Diocletian  seemed  to  have  returned.  The  ad- 
vance of  the  pagans  was  marked  everywhere  by 
the  burning  of  Christian  sanctuaries  and  the 
slaughter  of  Bishops,  ministers,  and  people,  until 
the  greater  part  of  the  land  was  again  reduced 
to  paganism. 

But  we  must  not  suppose  that  the  effect  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  invasion  was  to  utterly  destroy  the 
British  Church.  It  was  very  far  from  doing  that. 
Whilst  it  did  indeed  seriously  cripple  the  Church, 
and  even  in  certain  places  entirely  destroy  it,  yet 
it  did  not  uproot  it  from  the  land.  Its  candle- 
stick was  not  taken  away.  We  need  no  better 
proof  of  this  than  the  fact  that  when,  two  cen- 
turies later,  iYugustine  came  to  preach  the  Gospel 


OUR   FIRST   MISSIONARY   HEROES  43 

to  the  Angles,  he  discovered  a  fully  organized 
Church  in  the  western  parts,  whither  the  Chris- 
tian Britons  had  been  driven  by  the  heathen,  and 
where  they  still  lived  unconquered  by  them.  If 
we  needed  more  proof  we  should  find  it  in  the 
fact  that,  in  a  conference  with  seven  Bishops  of 
this  Church,  St.  Augustine  made  certain  propo- 
sals to  them  w^hich  they  rejected,  on  the  express 
ground  that  he  claimed,  as  if  a  superior,  unwar- 
ranted lordship  over  them. 

The  natural  result  of  the  Saxon  invasion  was 
to  isolate  the  British  Church  from  the  Churches 
in  Europe  by  a  wedge  of  heathenism.  Probably 
this  very  fact  contributed  more  than  aught  else 
to  preserve  the  sturdy  independence  of  that 
Church.  Certain,  however,  it  is,  that  it  was  an 
independent  national  Church,  having  its  own 
Liturgy,  its  own  version  of  the  Bible,  different 
from  the  Vulgate,  its  own  mode  of  administering 
Baptism,  keeping  Easter,  and  of  Consecrating 
Churches  and  Bishops.  It  was  so  unlike,  in  many 
of  its  customs  and  ceremonies,  anything  seen 
either  in  the  Churches  of  France  or  Italy,  that  its 
origin  must  be  looked  for  elsewhere  than  from 
Western  Christendom. 

We  come  now  to  a  question  of  great  interest : 


44  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

Was  this  ancient  British  Church  a  missionary 
Church?  We  reply  it  was  ;  though  it  carried  on 
no  missionary  work  among  the  pagans,  and  for  the 
best  of  reasons,  because  no  Briton  could  have 
gone  among  them  with  any  prospect  of  coming 
back  alive.  Yet  notwithstanding  this,  it  was 
filled  with  that  missionary  spirit  which  rests  not 
until  it  has  done  something  for  Christ.  But  had 
that  British  Church  done  no  more  than  give  St. 
Patrick  to  the  work,  it  had  done  much ;  for  never 
was  there  a  more  faithful  and  devoted  missionary 
than  he.  He  it  is  who  is  so  universally  recog- 
nized as  the  Apostle  of  Ireland  ;  and  of  his  mis- 
sion, which  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  events 
in  Church  history,  we  happily  possess  most 
trustworthy  documents. 

The  principal  of  these  records  is  the  work 
composed  by  St.  Patrick  himself  in  his  old  age, 
and  addressed  to  the  people  of  Ireland  and  en- 
titled his  Confession ;  a  kind  of  profession  of 
faith.  This  profession  of  faith  he  wrote  as  a 
brief  memoir  of  his  own  ministry  and  life,  and 
also  as  a  public  and  thankful  acknowledgment 
to  God  for  the  manifold  mercies  vouchsafed  to 
him.  He  intended  by  means  of  it  that  all  men 
should  know  what  he  had  taught  and  done,  and 


OUR   FIRST   MISSIONARY   HEROES  45 

that  all  might  know  that  though  he  had  been 
permitted  to  labor  in  Ireland  for  many  years,  and 
had  baptized  many  thousands  there,  and  had 
planted  many  churches  in  that  country,  yet  he 
claimed  no  honor  to  himself,  but  ascribed  all  the 
glory  to  God. 

Now  who  was  this  man  of  whom  it  might  be 
truthfully  said,  "  He  was  a  good  man,  and  full  of 
the  Holy  Ghost."  He  was  not  an  Irishman,  he 
was  not  an  Italian.  His  baptismal  name  of  Suc- 
cath  points  to  Celtic  origin.  He  tells  us  that  his 
father  and  his  grandfather  were  clergymen,  and 
his  birthplace  is  generally  supposed  to  have  been 
on  the  banks  of  the  Clyde,  in  Scotland,  between 
Dumbarton  and  Glasgow,  though  some  suppose 
that  he  was  born  in  France.  Certainly  he  was 
either  born  in  Scotland  or  France,  but  the  proba- 
bility is  in  favor  of  Scotland,  and  for  this  reason  : 
When  sixteen  years  of  age  he  was  captured  by 
pirates  and  carried  to  the  north  of  Ireland,  where 
he  was  sold  as  a  slave.  Until  his  twenty-third 
year  he  remained  the  slave  of  a  heathen  master  in 
Ireland.  He  speaks  in  his  Confession  of  his  own 
course  at  that  time.  "  I  wandered  as  a  shepherd," 
he  says,  ''  drenched  by  rains  and  chilled  by  dews 
and  frost."     But  in   his  twenty-third  year  he  es- 


46  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

caped  and  returned  to  his  native  land.  He 
would  not,  however,  remain  there.  He  had  seen 
the  people  of  Ireland  scattered  like  sheep  with- 
out a  shepherd,  and  his  heart  was  moved  toward 
them ;  and  so  after  some  years  of  preparation  he 
received  the  Holy  Orders  of  Deacon,  Priest,  and 
Bishop,  and  about  the  year  of  Our  Lord  430,  with 
a  noble  Christian  forgetfulness  of  the  past,  and  a 
spirit  of  Christian  self-sacrifice,  he  went  back  to 
preach  the  Gospel  in  the  land  where  he  had  been 
an  exile  and  a  slave.  There  he  lived  the  remainder 
of  his  years,  and  there  he  died.  For  sixty  years 
he  toiled,  never  quitting  the  field,  and  at  last,  full 
of  labors  and  of  years,  like  a  reaper  with  his 
sheaves  around  him,  he  fell  asleep  in  Christ. 
Truly  ''  they  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the 
brightness  of  the  firmament,  and  they  that  turn 
many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  for  ever  and 
ever." 

We  do  not  wonder  that  another  Church,  that  of 
Rome,  whom  he  never  knew,  has  claimed  him  as 
her  son,  for  his  praise  is  in  all  the  Churches.  But 
did  St.  Patrick  never  know  the  Church  of  Rome  ? 
He  had  heard  of  her,  of  course,  but  he  owed 
nothing  to  her,  and  into  his  life  she  never  en- 
tered.    In  his  Confession  he  never  mentions  her. 


OUR   FIRST  MISSIONARY   HEROES  47 

He  mentions  the  clergy  of  Britain  ;  he  mentions 
the  clergy  of  France ;  he  mentions  the  clergy  ot 
Ireland ;  but  he  never  mentions  the  clergy  of 
Rome,  and  the  name  of  Rome  never  once  occurs 
in  St.  Patrick's  own  writings  and  work. 

This,  however,  is  not  all.  Rome  evidently  did 
not  know  St.  Patrick.  Let  me  show  this.  Our 
Roman  Catholic  brethren  claim  that  he  was  sent 
to  Ireland  by  Celestine,  in  his  time  Bishop  of 
Rome.  Well,  in  the  time  of  Celestine,  Prosper 
Aquitanus  lived.  He  composed  the  "  Annals  of 
the  Church."  Now  he  never  mentions  St.  Patrick 
in  his  history,  but  he  does  mention  Palladius,  a 
missionary  whom  Celestine  sent  to  Ireland  one 
year  before  St.  Patrick  went  there,  and  who  was  a 
complete  failure,  giving  up  his  work  almost  at 
once  and  leaving  the  country.  Patrick,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  a  glorious  success,  and  became 
Ireland's  Apostle.  Singular,  is  it  not,  that  the 
Roman  historian  should  tell  us  all  about  the  poor 
failure  of  Palladius,  and  not  say  anything  about 
the  apostolic  St.  Patrick,  if  St.  Patrick  really  had 
come  from  Rome,  or  ever  been  commissioned  by 
her  ? 

Again,  to  speak  of  our  own  records.  The  most 
ancient  of  English  Church  historians  is  the  Vener- 


48  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

able  Bede,  who  was  born  a.d.  672,  less  than  two 
centuries  after  St.  Patrick's  death.  He  was  sup- 
plied with  much  material  from  the  archives  of 
Rome,  but  nevertheless  he  never  mentions  St. 
Patrick.  Do  we  ask  why  ?  The  reason  is  evi- 
dent. Patrick  was  not  one  of  the  Roman  cler- 
gy. He  was  a  missionary  from  the  old  British 
Church  ! 

Again,  another  great  missionary  was  St.  Co- 
lumba,  who  is  justly  regarded  as  the  Apostle  of 
the  Highlands  and  Western  Isles  of  Scotland. 
He  was  of  Ireland's  ancient  line  of  kings,  and 
preached  the  gospel  in  Northern  Britain  thirty 
years  before  Augustine  landed  in  England. 

Banished  from  Ireland,  he,  with  twelve  com- 
panions, crossed  the  sea  to  Scotland.  They 
landed  on  the  little  island  of  lona,  which  King 
Colman,  a  kinsman  of  Columba,  gave  him  to  be 
used  for  religious  purposes.  Here  a  monastery 
was  founded,  to  wdiich  the  whole  of  Northern 
Scotland,  and  the  isles  surrounding  it,  owe  their 
first  knowledge  of  Christianity.  Ireland,  in  the 
person  of  Columba,  was  thus  magnificently  re- 
paying her  debt  to  Britain  for  her  St.  Patrick.  No 
place  on  earth  outside  the  Hol}^  Land  is  richer  in 
sacred  associations  than  that  spot  from  w^hence 


OUR    FIRST   MISSIONARY   HEROES  49 

radiated  the  rays  of  Christian  teaching  for  many 
a  century  to  come. 

*'  The  pilgrim  at  Zona's  shrine 
Forgets  his  journey's  toil, 
As  faith  rekindles  in  his  breast 
On  that  inspiring  soil." 

The  words  of  Columba,  spoken  but  a  few  hours 
before  he  died,  have  been  signally  fulfilled.  ''  To 
this  place,  little  and  poor  though  it  be,  there  shall 
come  great  honor,  not  only  from  Scottish  kings 
and  people,  but  from  barbarians  and  foreign  na- 
tions, and  from  the  saints  of  the  other  Churches 
also."  It  Avas  a  true  prophecy.  The  sanctity  of 
the  place  brought  thither  for  burial  not  merely 
kings  of  the  British  and  Celtic  people,  but  even 
kings  of  Spain  and  Norway.  Here  Duncan  was 
buried,  whom  Macbeth  murdered ;  for  he  was 
carried,  as  Shakespeare  tells  us,  to  Colmes  Kill, 
the  sacred  storehouse  of  his  predecessors  and 
guardian  of  their  bones. 

Columba's  end  was  singularly  beautiful ;  it  re- 
minds us  of  the  last  hours  of  Bede.  Coming  from 
the  hill  where  he  had  delivered  his  prophecy  con- 
cerning the  future  greatness  of  lona,  it  is  related 
that  he  entered  the  monastery  to  die.      He  could 


50  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

only  half  finish  the  verse  of  the  Psalter  he  was 
copying- :  "  They  that  seek  the  Lord  shall  want  no 
manner  of  thing  that  is  good  ;  "  and  on  that  Sun- 
day morning,  June  7,  A.D.  597,  having  hastened 
to  the  matins  of  the  festival,  he  died  before  the 
altar,  among  his  spiritual  children,  who  had  hur- 
ried to  him  in  the  dim  light  before  the  dawn  to 
obtain  his  last  blessing.  His  voice  was  gone  and 
there  was  no  power  in  his  right  hand.  But,  raised 
by  another,  he  made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and 
passed  into  the  visible  presence  of  his  Lord,  to  re- 
ceive the  reward  of  those  who  turn  many  to 
righteousness. 

As  St.  Patrick's  was  the  noblest  and  most  fruit- 
ful missionary  career  ever  accomplished  in  Ire- 
land, so  in  like  manner  St.  Columba's  was  the 
noblest  ever  accomplished  in  Scotland. 

Was  it  a  strange  coincidence  that,  whilst  this 
great  missionary  (to  use  his  OAvn  words)  ''  was  en- 
tering on  the  way  of  his  fathers,"  another  mission- 
ary was  beginning  his  Avork  to  the  southward? 
The  founder  of  lona  died  on  the  7th  of  June ;  and 
on  the  14th  of  April,  in  the  same  year,  the  Roman 
missionary  Augustine  had  landed  on  the  southern 
coast  to  join  in  the  same  holy  work,  and  to  leave 
behind  him  the  glory  of  an  apostolic  example. 


OUR   FIRST   MISSIONARY   HEROES  51 

We  have  spoken  of  the  Church  in  Britain  and 
of  the  Church  in  Ireland.  Sister  Churches  were 
they,  working  side  by  side ;  together  working  in 
God's  cause,  together  possessing  God's  blessing. 
Like  the  two  olive-trees  Zechariah  saw  in  his 
vision,  so  were  these  two  Churches.  ''And  the 
angel  that  talked  with  me  came  again,  and  waked 
me,  as  a  man  that  is  wakened  out  of  his  sleep." 
''  Then  answered  I,  and  said  unto  him.  What  are 
these  two  olive-trees  upon  the  right  side  of  the 
candlestick,  and  upon  the  left  side  thereof?" 
*'  And  he  answered  me  and  said,  Knowest  thou 
not  what  these  be  ?  "  ''  Then  said  he.  These  are 
the  two  anointed  ones,  that  stand  by  the  Lord 
of  the  whole  earth." 


IV. 

THE  FIRST  ITALIAN  MISSION  TO 
ENGLAND,  IN   THE  SIXTH   CENTURY 


IV. 


THE   FIRST  ITALIAN  MISSION  TO 
ENGLAND,   IN   THE   SIXTH   CENTURY 

"  Out  of  Zion  went  forth  the  law,  and  the  word  of  the  Lord 
from  Jerusalem." — Isaiah,  xi.  3. 

We  have  hitherto  brought  down  our  studies  in 
early  British  Church  history  to  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century.  The  state  of  the  British  Church 
at  the  close  of  that  period  was  briefly  as.  follows : 
In  the  greater  part  of  what  we  now  call  England, 
where  the  Saxons  had  obtained  possession,  Chris- 
tianity had  practically  perished.  But  in  the  un- 
conquered  portions  of  the  land,  all  along  the  west- 
ern seaboard,  from  Cornwall  to  the  Lowlands  of 
Scotland,  the  Christian  Church  held  possession. 
There  Bishops  and  clergy  still  ministered  to  their 
people,  and  the  sacrifice  of  prayer  and  praise  was 
offered  as  beforetimes.  Across  the  Channel,  in 
Ireland,  mainly  through  the  preaching  of  the 
apostolic  missionary  St.  Patrick,  the  Church  had 
gained  some  of  her  brightest  triumphs  and  many 
tribes  had   been   won   for  Christ ;  whilst  in  Scot- 


56  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

land  again,  the  great  Irish -born  St.  Columba 
had  carried  the  knowledge  of  Christ  crucified 
northward,  far  to  the  Highlands  and  through  all 
the  western  Isles,  fulfilling  the  beautiful  prophecy 
of  Isaiah  (li.  5) :  "  The  isles  shall  wait  upon  me, 
and  on  mine  arm  shall  they  trust." 

But  zealous  as  it  was  for  Christ,  that  old  British 
Church  had  done  nothing  to  convert  the  pagan 
invaders  of  their  land.  Side  by  side  for  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  Christian  Britons  and  pagan 
Saxons  lived,  and  during  all  that  time  the  Saxons 
might  have  justly  exclaimed,  "  No  man  cares  for 
our  souls."  But  in  the  sixth  century  Christian 
teachers  appeared  on  the  southern  coast  to  lead 
the  Saxons  to  kneel  at  the  feet  of  Him  whom 
once,  like  St.  Paul,  they  had  cruelly  persecuted. 

These  missionaries  were  Augustine,  the  Bene- 
dictine monk,  and  his  forty  companions,  sent  by 
Gregory  the  Great,  'Bishop  of  Rome. 

May  we  recall  the  well-known  story  which  tells 
of  the  sending  of  these  missionaries  by  Gregory  ? 
Humanly  speaking  Augustine  would  never  have 
come  at  all  had  it  not  been  for  one  of  those  oc- 
currences which  men  speak  of  as  chance,  but  in 
which  we  can  often  see  God's  providential  hand. 
You  doubtless  know  the  incident  well.     The  story 


THE   FIRST   ITALIAN   MISSION   TO   ENGLAND     5/ 

of  it  is  at  once  old  and  yet  ever  fresh.  There  was 
the  market-place  at  Rome  ;  among  bales  of  mer- 
chandise, newly  arrived,  there  were  three  boys  to 
be  sold  as  slaves.  Gregory,  the  future  Bishop, 
passing  through  the  market-place  was  attracted 
by  the  sight  of  these  boys,  with  their  fair  com- 
plexions and  light  flaxen  hair,  so  unlike  the  dark 
olive  skins  and  jet  black  hair  of  the  Italians. 
*'  What  is  the  name  of  the  nation  from  which 
these  boys  are  brought  ?  "  asked  Gregory  of  the 
trader.  ''  They  are  Angles/'  is  the  reply.  In  po- 
etic fancy  the  good  Gregory  answers :  "  Rightlv 
are  they  called  Angles  for  their  faces  are  the  faces 
of  Angels  and  they  ought  to  be  fellow-heirs  with 
the  angels  of  heaven."     Such  is  the  legend. 

Years  passed  away,  but  Gregory  never  forgot 
that  pathetic  sight  in  the  market-place.  He  of- 
ten thought  of  those  little  slave  boys.  They  had 
made  an  impression  on  his  mind  which  could  not 
be  effaced.  Vividly  had  they  made  him  realize 
the  needs  of  their  nation,  and  often  in  the  niglit- 
time  would  there  arise  in  his  dreams  one  like  the 
man  of  Macedon,  who  said :  "  Come  over  and 
help  us ;  "  nay  not  one  voice  but  many  : 

"  Thousand  voices,  thousand  voices, 
Called  him  o'er  the  waters  blue." 


58  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

At  length  he  could  resist  no  longer  the  plead- 
ing of  those  voices,  and  he  gave  himself  for  the 
work.  But  a  man  so  beloved  as  he  was  the  Ro- 
man people  could  ill  spare,  and  they  refused  to 
let  him  go.  Disappointed  for  the  time  his  pur- 
pose never  faltered,  directly  or  indirectly  he 
WOULD  preach  the  Gospel  in  the  land  of  the 
Angles.  Not  till  six  years  had  elapsed,  however, 
could  he  fulfil  his  heart's  desire,  and  then  the  way 
was  opened  before  him  ;  for  he  had  become  Bishop 
of  Rome,  and,  as  such,  one  of  his  first  acts  was  to 
summon  a  certain  Benedictine  monk,  named  Au- 
gustine, to  do  what  he  himself  had  so  earnestly 
longed  to  do,  and  carry  the  Gospel  to  the  isles  of 
the  west.  We  do  not  marvel  that  Augustine  was 
loth  to  exchange  the  fair  Italian  skies  and  his 
peaceful  monastic  life  for  the  wandering  hfe  of  a 
missionary  among  savage  Saxons.  But  he  had  to 
deal  with  a  man  who  was  as  capable  as  he  was 
good,  and  the  Benedictine  rule  called  for  implicit 
obedience.  Augustine  therefore  yielded,  and  on 
April  14,  597,  he,  with  forty  companions,  crossed 
the  Channel  and  stood  on  English  soil.  The  sight 
of  the  slave  boys  at  Rome  was  now  to  bear  its 
fruit  at  last.  Rome,  which  had  torn  those  boys 
from   their  homes,    had    now    sent   men   to  their 


THE    FIRST   ITALIAN    MISSION   TO   ENGLAND     59 

fatherland  to  free  those  who  dwelt  therein  from 
the  slavery  of  sin  and  heathenism.  It  was  a  noble 
recompense  to  make. 

The  first  care  of  Augustine  and  his  fellow-mis- 
sionaries was  to  send  from  the  Isle  of  Thanet, 
where  they  had  landed,  their  homage  to  the 
King  o'f  Kent.  This  was  Ethelbert,  King  of  the 
Jutes.  They  were  come,  they  said,  from  Rome, 
with  the  best  of  all  messages,  and,  if  he  would  ac- 
cept it,  he  would  undoubtedly  insure  for  him- 
self an  everlasting  kingdom.  The  heathen  king 
warily  replied  that  he  would  come  and  see  them  : 
meanwhile  they  were  to  remain  on  the  Isle  of 
Thanet.  There,  when  at  the  appointed  time  and 
place  Ethelbert  and  his  thanes  had  taken  their 
seats,  the  missionaries  approached.  As  they 
came  into  the  presence  of  the  king  they  raised 
aloft  a  silver  cross,  and  a  board  on  which  was 
painted  a  figure  of  The  C  ucified.  And  then  by 
means  of  a  Gallic  interpreter  Augustine  delivered 
his  message.  He  told,  said  a  Saxon  homilist  long 
after,  how  the  tender-hearted  Jesus  by  His  throes 
had  redeemed  the  sinful  world,  and  had  opened 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers. 

The  religion  he  heard  thus  preached  by  Au- 
gustine could  not  have  been  entirely  new  to  him, 


60  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

for  his  queen  was  a  Christian,  and  she  and  her 
chaplain  had  long  Avorshipped  God  in  the  lit- 
tle British  chapel  on  the  slopes  of  St.  Martin's 
Hill,  just  outside  the  city  of  Canterbury.  But 
Ethelbert  had  never  before  seen  his  wife's  faith 
represented  with  such  dignity  and  solemnity, 
and  it  is  evident  that  he  was  most  favorably  im- 
pressed. He  at  once  gave  the  missionaries  per- 
mission to  proceed  to  Canterbury,  and  there  carry 
out  all  that  lay  in  their  hearts.  In  Ascension 
week,  597,  Augustine  for  the  first  time  saw  the 
city  Avhich  was  destined  to  be  the  seat  of  his 
archbishopric,  and  of  all  future  Archbishops  of 
Canterbury.  The  desire  seized  him  to  claim  the 
city  for  Christ.  A  procession  was  formed,  the 
cross  was  again  uplifted,  and  with  it  "  a  like- 
ness of  the  great  King,  Our  Lord,"  and  he  and 
his  companions  entered  Canterbury  singing : 
*'  Turn  from  this  city,  O  Lord,  Thine  anger 
and  wrath,  and  turn  it  from  Thy  holy  house, 
for  we  have  sinned." 

Thus  was  inaugurated  the  foundation  of  the 
Church  among  the  Saxons.  Passing  into  the  heart 
of  the  city  through  a  long  line  of  curious  Jutes, 
who  came  out  of  their  houses  to  look  at  the  dark 
strangers,  they  made  their  home  near  to  a  hea- 


THE   FIRST   ITALIAN   MISSION   TO   ENGLAND     6 1 

then  temple,  which  stood  ahnost  on  the  ground 
where  now  stands  the  Cathedral  Church  of  Can- 
terbury. Here  they  dwelt,  giving  themselves  to 
frequent  prayers,  watching,  and  fasting,  preach- 
ing to  all  within  their  reach.  ''  What  need  we  say 
more,"  says  Bede ;  "  some  believed  and  were  bap- 
tized, admiring  the  simplicity  of  their  blameless 
life  and  the  sweetness  of  their  heavenly  teaching." 
The  language  of  the  historian  forcibly  reminds 
us  of  the  summing  up  by  an  inspired  writer  in  a 
very  similar  case,  "  And  some  believed  the  things 
which  were  spoken,  and  some  believed  not." 

On  June  first  following,  not  quite  one  year 
after  they  arrived,  their  cup  of  joy  was  full  to 
overflowing.  Whether  won  by  the  earnest  per- 
suasions of  Bertha,  his  queen,  or  convinced  by 
the  life  and  teaching  of  the  missionaries,  Ethel- 
bert  offered  himself  for  baptism.  His  example 
told  on  his  subjects,  and  from  that  day  the  success 
of  the  mission  seemed  assured.  Alas !  how  little 
can  we  foresee  the  future.  When  the  great  mis- 
sionary and  philanthropist  Livingstone  returned 
from  Africa  to  tell  of  what  he  had  seen  there, 
fields  white  already  to  harvest,  only  waiting  for' 
the  coming  of  the  reapers,  he  created  so  much 
enthusiasm    in    England   that    after   a    crowded 


62  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

meeting  at  Cambridge  one  was  heard  to  say : 
"  I  am  afraid  of  this  ;  most  successful  undertak- 
ings have  had  less  auspicious  beginnings."  So 
here  Augustine  might  have  said,  '*  I  am  afraid  of 
this."  It  may  be  that  a  fear  did  arise  in  his  heart 
that  what  he  saw  would  be  as  the  morning  dew. 
But  so  far  all  went  merry  as  a  marriage-bell,  and 
no  warning  voice  was  heard. 

So  ends  the  first  scene  in  the  great  drama. 
Soon  afterward  Augustine  passed  over  to  France, 
where,  on  the  i6th  November  following,  he  was 
consecrated  a  Bishop,  at  the  hands  of  Bishops  of 
the  national  Church  of  Gaul.  On  his  return  home 
he  found  a  multitude  of  new  proselytes,  more  than 
ten  thousand  Kentish  men  having  been  baptized 
in  his  absence.  Such  successes  as  these  must 
have  reminded  the  missionaries  of  the  first  great 
Pentecostal  day.  Inspired,  doubtless,  by  the  feel- 
ing that  God  was  with  them,  Augustine  sought  to 
build  up  not  only  the  grand  spiritual  temple  of 
living  souls,  but  a  visible  dwelling-place  of  the 
Most  High,  which  should  be  not  only  an  outward 
token  of  the  work  done,  but  a  place  where 
prayers  were  wont  to  be  made.  Upon  Augustine 
himself  the  king  had  freely  bestowed  his  own 
royal  palace,  and  it  may  be  that  the  Bishop,  like 


THE   FIRST   ITALIAN   MISSION   TO   ENGLAND     63 

David  of  old,  could  take  no  rest  until  he  had 
found  out  a  place  for  the  temple  of  the  Lord,  an 
habitation  for  the  mighty  God  of  Jacob.  He  re- 
stored therefore  the  church  which  had  been  built 
by  Roman  Christians,  but  had  afterward  been 
used  by  the  heathens,  and  rededicated  it  "  in  the 
name  of  the  holy  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  our  God 
and  Lord."  As  the  modern  pilgrim  to  Canter- 
bury passes  through  the  hop-gardens  which 
stretch  far  away  on  either  side  of  the  road,  he 
sees  the  spire  of  the  present  cathedral,  which 
marks  the  spot  where  the  Christ  Church  of  Au- 
gustine's foundation  originally  stood. 

Now  in  order  that  we  may  have  a  distinct  idea 
of  the  precise  state  of  Augustine's  mission  at  the 
close  of  the  first  year  of  his  work,  and  indeed  for 
some  time  afterward,  let  us  assume  that  Augus- 
tine landed  not  in  England,  but  in  the  United 
States.  In  that  case  entering  at  the  southeast  his 
sphere  of  work  would  have  been  Florida,  and  his 
cathedral  city  St.  Augustine.  In  that  case,  too, 
he  would  have  found,  all  along  the  Pacific  coast, 
from  Alaska  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  a  fully  organ- 
ized national  Church.  Canada  he  would  have 
recognized  to  be  in  no  need  of  his  missionary 
labors,  for  she,  too,  had  her  own  Church,  a  branch 


64  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  that  same  Church  which  was  in  existence  on 
the  slopes  of  the  Pacific. 

Let  us  further  assume  at  the  time  of  his  landing 
in  this  country  that  the  various  States  were  not 
yet  in  constitutional  union,  but  were  often  at  war 
with  one  another,  and  that  Florida  was  neither 
the  greatest  nor  the  most  important  of  them,  and 
then  1  think  we  shall  have  a  good  general  idea  of 
the  nature,  difficulties,  and  actual  sphere  of  Au- 
gustine's work.  We  can  admit  that  the  Church 
along  the  Pacific  shore  was  doing  nothing  for  the 
conversion  of  the  States  east  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, or  to  second  in  anyway  the  efforts  of  the 
missionaries  in  Florida ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  should  require  it  to  be  acknowledged  that  the 
Canadian  Church  was  pushing  its  mission  south- 
ward over  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States,  and 
that  these  missions  were  eventually  far  more  suc- 
cessful' than  the  missions  in  Florida,  and  were  in 
fact  to  be  their  means  of  salvation  in  the  dark 
days  which  should  come  upon  them. 

Which  things  are  an  allegory  —  the  United 
States  answereth  to  England  that  then  was,  Flor- 
ida to  Kent,  the  Pacific  coast  to  the  British  coast 
from  Cornwall  northward,  and  Canada  to  Scot- 
land.    We  do  not  wish  to  minimize  Augustine's 


THE   FIRST   ITALIAN    MISSION   TO    ENGLAND     6$ 

work.  Nor  do  we.  He  was  the  Apostle  of  Kent. 
He  planted  a  mission  there  which,  notwithstand- 
ing serious  reverses  of  fortune,  took  root  and  bore 
its  fruit  toward  the  conversion  of  England.  All 
honor  to  him  for  what  he  did.  He  had  the  true 
missionary  spirit.  He  gave  himself  to  the  mis- 
sionary cause,  and  died,  like  Columba  and  Patrick, 
in  the  harvest  -  field,  laboring  to  gather  in  the 
sheaves.  But  as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  his 
work,  that  is  adequately  and  even  best  described 
in  the  Avords  of  the  epitaph  placed  upon  his  tomb : 
"  Here  rests  Augustine,  first  Lord  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  who  formerly,  directed  hither  by  the 
blessed  Gregory,  Pontiff  of  the  city  of  Rome,  and 
sustained  by  God  in  the  working  of  miracles, 
brought  over  King  Ethelbert  and  his  nation  from 
the  worship  of  idols  to  the  faith  of  Christ,  and 
having  completed  the  days  of  his  office  in  peace, 
deceased  on  the  7th  da}^  of  the  Kalends  of  June, 
in  the  same  King's  reign." 

How  the  magnitude  and  the  difficulties  of  the 
work  must  often  have  weighed  upon  Augustine's 
mind.  How  was  he  to  reach  the  various  Anglo- 
Saxon  kingdoms?  He  seemed  as  far  off  as  ever 
from  converting  the  kingdom  from  whence  the 
little  slaves  had  come.  What  could  he  do  for 
5 


66  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

these  and  for  others  with  whom  as  yet  he  had  not 
been  brought  into  contact?  In  the  first  place,  he 
felt  he  needed  more  men,  and  in  response  to  an 
appeal  Gregory  sent  him  four,  of  whom  three 
were  destined  to  play  no  insignificant  part  in  the 
story  of  English  Christianity :  Mellitus,  Justus, 
and  Paulinus ;  and  in  the  second  place  he  made 
overtures  to  the  Bishops  of  the  British  Church  to 
join  him  in  reaping  the  spiritual  harvest-fields. 

In  response  to  his  overtures  seven  Bishops  of 
the  British  Church  met  Augustine  in  conference 
at  a  place  now  known  as  Augustine's  Oak,  near 
the  Severn,  not  very  far  from  the  ancient  settle- 
ment at  Glastonbury.  But  two  cannot  walk  to- 
gether unless  they  be  agreed,  and  there  were 
points  of  difference  between  him  and  them  which 
he  deemed  necessar}^  first  to  be  settled.  Three  of 
these  differences — {a)  of  keeping  Easter ;  (3)  of  bap- 
tizing; and  (c)  of  wearing  the  tonsure — were,  in 
Augustine's  judgment,  insuperable  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  joint  action,  and  he  strenuously  urged 
the  British  Bishops  to  lay  aside  their  own  tra- 
ditions and  to  follow  those  of  his  own  Church  as 
being  more  in  harmony  with  the  practices  of 
the  Catholic  Churches  generally  throughout  the 
world. 


THE   FIRST   ITALIAN   MISSION   TO   ENGLAND     6/ 

The  native  bishops,  however,  were  not  so  ready 
to  give  way  and  adopt  the  customs  of  a  stranger. 
Yet  they  would  not  act  hastily,  and  so  they  asked 
for  another  meeting  when  these  matters  might  be 
finally  settled.  In  the  meantime  they  took  coun- 
sel with  one  famed  for  wisdom.  Would  he  ad- 
vise them  to  adopt  the  new  custom  ?  The  reply 
was :  "  If  Augustine  be  a  man  of  God,  follow 
him."  But  how  was  this  to  be  ascertained  ? 
''  Contrive,"  said  the  oracle,  "  that  the  stranger 
come  to  the  place  of  meeting  before  you.  If 
when  you  approach  he  rises  to  meet  you,  then  be 
sure  that  he  is  a  servant  of  Christ  and  listen  to 
him  obediently."  They  so  arranged  it.  Augus- 
tine failed  to  arise,  and  they  would  therefore  con- 
cede nothing  to  one  in  whom  they  thus  thought 
abided  none  of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  So  Augustine 
returned  to  his  home  in  Kent.  His  first  plan  had 
failed  completely. 

How  fared  his  other  attempt?  By  Ethelbert's 
influence  he  managed  to  get  Mellitus  settled  in 
London,  in  the  kingdom  of  Sabert,  King  of  the 
East  Saxons  ;  Justus  he  placed  in  Rochester,  a 
Kentish  city,  not  far  from  his  own.  Paulinus 
went  northward.  But  sad  reverses  followed  the 
efforts  of  all  these,  and  their  work  was  for  a  time 


68  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

as  if  blotted  out.  In  London,  as  soon  as  Sabert 
was  dead,  who  had  been  to  Mellitus  what  Ethel- 
bert  had  been  to  Augustine,  his  son  drove  out 
Mellitus,  and  London  returned  to  its  idols,  and 
for  nearly  forty  years  Essex  and  London  were 
lost  to  Christianity.  It  was  almost  as  bad  in 
Kent  after  the  deaths  of  Ethelbert  and  Augus- 
tine. Numbers  at  once  relapsed  into  paganism, 
and  even  in  the  city  of  Canterbury  Christianity 
seemed  about  to  perish. 

We  have  dwelt  at  somewhat  greater  length 
than  we  should  otherwise  have  done  on  the  par- 
ticular share  Augustine  had  in  the  conversion  of 
England,  because  there  are  those  who  have  so  ex- 
aggerated his  labors  as  if  from  him  alone  came 
the  knowledge  of  Christianity  to  the  British  Isles. 
But  only  those  who  know  but  little  of  the  real 
facts  will  venture  to  speak  of  him  as  if  he  had 
been  to  England  what  Patrick  was  to  Ireland 
and  Columba  to  Scotland.  When  he  died  his 
influence  had  barely  extended  beyond  the  little 
kingdom  of  Kent,  and  it  was  not  till  long  after  his 
death  that  the  event  which  he  desired  in  vain  to 
see  became  an  accomplished  fact,  and  the  rem- 
nant of  the  ancient  British  Church  and  the  Celtic 
Church  of  the  north  were  brought  into  union  with 


THE   FIRST   ITALIAN   MISSION   TO   ENGLAND     69 

the  Italian  mission,  and  the  scattered  Christian 
forces  in  Britain  at  length  were  welded  into  one 
harmonious  whole.  In  so  far  as  he  contributed  to 
this  grand  result  we  give  all  praise  to  Augustine ; 
but  it  must  ever  be  remembered  that  his  whole 
work  was  all  done  in  one  extreme  corner  of  Eng- 
land, and  that  after  his  death,  in  the  reign  of  an- 
other king  who  knew  not  Joseph,  who  knew  not, 
that  is,  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury,  his  very 
foundations  seemed  thrown  down.  The  glory, 
however,  that  has  been  claimed  for  Augustine  be- 
longs to  another — to  one  of  the  missionaries  of 
the  Northern  Church,  St.  Aidan  of  Lindisfarne, 
in  Northumbria,  for  it  was  he  who  bore  the  chief 
part  in  England's  conversion ;  so  that,  in  the 
strong  and  forcible  language  of  Bishop  Lightfoot, 
"  Aidan,  and  not  Augustine,  was  the  Apostle  of 
England." 

Later  on  we  shall  see  how  can  be  truly  claimed 
for  a  saint  of  the  Celtic  Church  the  chief  place  of 
honor  and  glory ;  but  meanwhile  this  we  would 
say  that,  were  it  otherwise,  were  it  so  that  to 
Augustine  pertained  the  honor  of  being  God's 
instrument  for  the  conversion  of  England,  then 
the  results  would  not  follow  which  are  claimed 
by  our  Roman  brethren.     If  the  whole  people  of 


70  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Britain  had  indeed  been  baptized  by  Augustine, 
it  would  not  therefore  follow  that  those  whom  he 
baptized  were  subject  to  the  Church  which  sent 
him.  If  this  argument  had  any  weight,  then  it 
would  follow  that  all  Churches,  Rome  amongst 
them,  would  be  subject  to  the  Church  of  Jerusa- 
lem, for  all  the  Apostles  came  forth  of  her. 
''  Out  of  Zion  went  forth  the  law,  and  the  word  of 
the  Lord  from  Jerusalem^  She  was  the  Mother 
Church  of  Christendom.  But  who  is  Paul  and 
who  is  Apollos,  but  ministers  by  whom  ye  be- 
lieved. Our  Church  to-day  has  her  missionaries 
in  Japan,  but  they  are  building  up  there  not  a 
Church  of  America,  but  a  Church  of  Japan  ! 

Yet,  as  we  have  seen,  Augustine's  work  was 
confined  to  Kent,  and  he  was  but  one  of  several 
missionaries  at  work  there,  many  of  whom  were 
natives  of  the  country  and  sons  of  the  native 
Church.  For  all  that  he  did  we  give  him  due 
praise,  but  let  us  remember  that,  through  no 
fault  of  his,  the  mission  after  his  death  was  ready 
to  vanish  away,  so  overwhelmed  Avas  it  with 
trouble  and  disaster,  and  that  the  new  life  which 
was  breathed  into  it  after  Gregory's  and  Augus- 
tine's deaths  came  from  missionaries  born  in  the 
land  and  yielding   obedience   to   that  old  Celtic 


THE   FIRST   ITALIAN    MISSION   TO   ENGLAND     /I 

Church  which  gave  us  such  missionary  heroes 
as  Columba  and  Patrick  and  Aidan,  than  whose 
names  none  shine  brighter  in  all  the  missionary 
records  of  the  past. 


V. 
OUR  CHURCH   UNDER   THE  SAXONS 


V. 

OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  SAXONS 

"  Neither  is  he  that  planteth  anything,  neither  is  he  that  water- 
eth ;  but  God  that  giveth  the  increase." — i  CoR.  iii.  7. 

Would  that  men  had  always  remembered 
these  words,  and  been  willing  to  efface  them- 
selves and  give  God  the  glory. 

On  the  death  of  Ethelbert,  King  of  Kent,  and 
of  Sabert,  King  of  the  East  Saxons,  the  prospects 
of  the  Italian  mission  in  England  seemed  gloomy 
indeed.  Its  very  existence  was  threatened. 
With  the  rise  of  persecution  the  Bishops  of 
London  and  Rochester  fled  into  Gaul,  and  even 
Laurentius,  the  successor  of  Augustine,  was  on 
the  point  of  following  them  when  he  was  de- 
terred by  a  dream,  in  which  he  saw  himself  re- 
proved for  his  cowardice.  A  false  step  and  all 
would  have  been  lost.  Happily  Laurentius  re- 
mained at  his  post,  and  his  steadfastness  saved 
the  work  of  Augustine  from  utter  extinction. 
Nothing   that   he  could  have  done   would   have 


^6  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

more  helped  the  cause  of  Christ  in  Kent  than 
this  simple  obedience  to  the  teaching  of  his  con- 
science in  the  presence  of  danger.  Eadbald,  the 
new  King  of  Kent,  was  so  much  impressed  by  the 
sight  of  this  one  Bishop  remaining  true  to  his 
charge  that  he  shortly  afterward  embraced  the 
Christian  religion,  and  became  to  Laurentius  all 
that  his  father  had  been  to  Augustine. 

That  readiness  to  suffer,  even  unto  death,  in  the 
path  of  duty  was  fruitful  of  results  greater  even 
than  Eadbald's  conversion.  To  that  one  deed  of 
Christian  heroism  was  due  the  introduction  of 
Christianity  into  Northumbria. 

The  story  of  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  in  the 
north  is  so  remarkably  like  the  story  of  the 
preaching  in  the  south,  that  the  parallel  strikes 
the  least  observant.  In  each  case  there  is  a 
Christian  queen  who  influences  her  husband  to 
become  a  Christian,  under  whom  the  nation  turns 
with  much  enthusiasm  to  Christ,  only  to  relapse 
again  into  paganism  on  the  death  of  the  Christian 
king.  Then,  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed,  the 
Church,  phcenix-like,  rises  from  the  fire  to  new- 
ness of  life.  The  account  of  the  introduction  of 
Christianity  into  Northumbria  reveals  how  Lau- 
rentius, living  at  Canterbury,  obtained  a  share  in 


OUR   CHURCH   UNDER  THE  SAXONS  ^JJ 

that  glorious  work,  and  how  indeed  but  for  him 
no  Italian  missionary  would  have  preached  the 
Gospel  there.  We  have  already  seen  that  the 
faithfulness  of  Laurentius  resulted  in  Eadbald's 
conversion.  But  observe  the  result  of  his  becom- 
ing a  Christian.  The  day  came  when  Edwin,  the 
King  of  Northumbria,  desired  to  marry  Ethel- 
burga,  Eadbald's  sister.  But  Eadbald  would  not 
allow  his  sister  to  marry  a  pagan  unless  she 
should  have  full  power  to  worship  Christ  accord- 
ing to  her  conscience ;  when  this  had  been  agreed 
to  the  Kentish  princess  went  northward,  accom- 
panied by  Paulinus,  one  of  the  four  missionaries 
whom  Gregory  had  sent  to  Augustine.  So  Ethel- 
burga  became  Edwin's  queen,  with  Paulinus  as 
her  chaplain. 

Paulinus,  not  content  with  being  merely  a 
queen's  chaplain,  preached  in  all  the  surrounding 
country  ;  but  long  he  toiled,  long  without  success. 
There  was  apparently  no  result.  Like  Henry 
Martyn  in  India,  or  St.  Anskar  in  Denmark,  he 
labored  on  without  gaining  a  single  convert. 
Doubtless  the  king  respected  the  tall,  stately, 
dignified  old  man  who  had  left  his  home  to 
preach  the  Gospel  in  a  foreign  land ;  but  he  re- 
mained apparently  uninfluenced,  and  even  unin- 


7^  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

terested.  Yet  God's  word  does  not  return  unto 
Him  void.  Respect  for  the  preacher  passed  at 
last  into  respect  for  the  religion  he  preached,  and 
Edwin  was  at  last  persuaded  in  his  own  mind 
that  the  religion  Paulinus  preached  was  true. 
He  called  a  meeting  of  his  wise  men  at  Good- 
manham,  near  York,  famous  for  its  idolatrous 
temple,  that  they  might  publicly  consider  the 
merits  of  Christianity. 

Most  interesting  is  the  account  we  have  in 
Bede  of  that  memorable  gathering.  The  king 
opened  the  proceedings.  For  a  year  they  had 
had,  he  said,  the  new  faith  represented  in  their 
midst  by  Paulinus.  What  did  they  think  of  it? 
Were  they  prepared  to  accept  it  ? 

Coifi,  the  pagan  priest  of  the  adjoining  temple, 
was  the  first  to  speak.  And  the  moment  he  be- 
gan it  was  evident  that  paganism  was  doomed  in 
Deira. 

''  No  man,"  he  said, ''  had  served  the  gods  better 
than  he  had  done,  but  many  were  much  better  off. 
Now  if  the  gods  were  of  any  use  at  all  they 
would  most  certainly  have  favored  him  most,  but 
they  had  not  done  so.  He  for  one  Avas  ready  to 
try  the  new  religion." 

It  was  the  speech  of  a  man  whose  idea  of  re- 


OUR   CHURCH   UNDER  THE   SAXONS  79 

ligion  was  not  very  exalted.  It  was  of  the  earth, 
earthy.  Far  different,  indescribably  suggestive 
and  pathetic,  was  the  speech  of  a  certain  thane, 
who  expressed  in  a  vivid  simile  that  bewilder- 
ment as  to  the  mystery  of  life  which  weighed 
heaviest  on  the  most  thoughtful  of  the  heathen. 

"  I  will  tell  you,  O  King,  what  methinks  man's 
life  is  like.  Sometimes  when  your  hall  is  lit  up 
for  supper  on  a  wild  winter's  evening,  and  warmed 
by  a  fire  in  the  midst,  a  sparrow  flies  in  by  one  door, 
takes  shelter  for  a  moment  in  the  warmth,  and 
then  flies  out  again  by  another  door,  and  is  lost 
in  the  stormy  darkness.  No  one  in  the  hall  sees 
the  bird  before  it  enters,  nor  after  it  has  gone 
forth  ;  it  is  only  seen  while  it  hovers  near  the  fire. 
Even  so,  I  ween,  as  to  this  brief  span  of  our  life  in 
this  w^orld  ;  what  has  gone  before  it,  what  will 
come  after  it — of  this  we  know  nothing.  If  the 
strange  preacher  can  tell  us,  by  all  means  let  him 
be  heard." 

Then  Paulinus  was  invited  to  address  the  as- 
sembly. Very  picturesque  must  the  scene  have 
been.  The  Italian  stood  there  in  his  black  flow- 
ing robes : 

"  Mark  him  of  shoulders  curved  and  stature  tall, 
Black  hair  and  vivid  eye,  and  meagre  cheek." 


So  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Such  was  Paulinus,  a  typical  Italian  ecclesias- 
tic. The  King,  his  thanes  and  freemen,  sat  around 
the  hall  in  their  snowy  tunics  and  cloaks,  fastened 
with  cairngorms.  What  Paulinus  said  we  know 
not.  Perhaps  like  Augustine  before  Ethelbert, 
"  he  told  how  the  tender-hearted  Jesus  by  His 
throes  redeemed  this  sinful  world,  and  had  opened 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers."  But  the 
effect  his  address  produced  we  do  know.  When 
he  had  finished,  Coifi  spoke  again.  "  Now  I  un- 
derstand what  the  truth  is.  I  have  long  known 
that  it  was  not  with  us  ;  but  now  I  see  it  shining 
out  clearly  in  this  teaching.  Let  us  destroy  these 
useless  temples  and  altars,  and  give  them  up  to 
the  curse  and  the  flame ! "  Thus  by  its  own 
priest  paganism  stood  condemned.  ''  Who  will 
begin,"  said  Edwin,  ''  the  work  of  destroying  the 
altars  and  temples  of  idolatry."  Coifi  claimed 
that  it  was  most  fitting  that  he  should  deal  the 
first  blow,  and  apply  the  torch  to  that  which  in 
his  folly  he  had  reverenced.  No  time  was  lost. 
The  temple  of  Goodmanham  was  soon  from  end 
to  end  a  sheet  of  fire,  and  the  red  glare  of  the 
burning  building  proclaimed  to  the  men  of  De- 
ira  that  their  king  and  his  wise  men  had  declared 
the  gods  of  their  fathers  to  be  no  gods,  but  only 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  SAXONS      8l 

the  work  of  men's  hands  and  the  imagination  of 
their  hearts. 

Thus  did'  Northumbria  by  a  national  act  accept 
Christianity.  Edwin  speedily  caused  a  chapel  to 
be  reared  at  York,  on  the  spot  where  now  the 
glorious  minster  stands,  and  in  that  rude  chapel 
on  Easter  eve,  April  ii,  627,  he  was  baptized,  and 
many  of  his  nobles  and  people  with  him.  That 
was  the  birthday  of  the  Northumbrian  Church. 

But  as  it  was  in  Kent,  so  it  was  in  Northum- 
bria. The  day  came  when  the  joy  of  the  Chris- 
tians was  turned  into  sorrow.  The  sword  of 
paganism  went  through  the  land,  and  Edwin  was 
cut  off  in  the  midst  of  his  days.  A  champion  of 
paganism  had  appeared,  Penda,  King  of  the  Mer- 
cians. For  thirty  years  this  heathen  king  was  a 
terror  to  the  Christians.  There  is  a  sort  of  fasci- 
nation about  the  career  of  one  who  seemed  irre- 
sistible as  destiny.  Of  five  kings  he  slaughtered, 
Edwin  was  the  first.  Edwin's  death  was  to  the 
Christians  in  Northumbria  what  the  slaying  of 
Josiah  at  Megiddo  was  to  the  Jews  of  old.  Good 
men  recovered  his  body  and  buried  it,  but  who 
could  take  Edwin's  place  ?  It  was  as  when  the 
ark  of  God  was  taken.  The  Bishop  of  York,  in 
the  royal  palace  which  would  never  again  hear 


82  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

the  master's  voice,  felt  that  the  end  had  come. 
He  could  stay  no  longer.  Taking  with  him  Ed- 
win's widowed  queen,  he  fled  with  her  and  her 
child  back  to  her  old  Kentish  home.  But  he 
never  returned  to  York.  The  See  of  Rochester 
being  vacant  at  the  time  he  became  its  Bishop. 

When  the  ashes  of  the  Northumbrian  Church 
were  fanned  into  a  flame  the  breeze  that  blew 
upon  them  came  not  from  the  south  but  from  the 
north  ;  not  from  Kent  but  from  lona ;  not  from 
Italy  but  from  Scotland ;  not  from  the  Roman 
Church  but  from  the  Celtic.  From  the  monas- 
tery St.  Columba  had  founded  among  the  West- 
ern Isles  came  forth  the  missionaries  who  were 
to  be  God's  instruments  in  the  double  work  of  res- 
toration and  extension ;  a  work  which  should  be 
crowned  with  lasting  and  abundant  success,  and 
which  should  give  to  one  of  them  the  title  of 
Apostle  of  England.  But  Penda's  victory  over 
Edwin  had  not  given  him  the  sovereignty  of 
Northumbria.     Edwin  was  succeeded  by  Oswald. 

Very  beautiful  was  Oswald's  character.  He  was 
all  Edwin  had  been  and  more.  In  the  prime  and 
glow  of  a  pure  and  noble  Christian  manhood ;  a 
man  who  was  wont,  in  the  words  of  Bede,  whilst 
finding  a  temporal   Kingdom  to  labor  and  pray 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  SAXONS      83 

rather  for  an  eternal  one.  He  was  altogether  a 
prince  of  men,  one  born  to  attract  general  en- 
thusiasm, admiration,  reverence,  and  love. 

His  first  care  on  coming  to  the  throne  was  to 
set  about  the  restoration  of  Christianity.  Churches 
were  to  be  built,  clergy  appointed,  services  car- 
ried on.  Sacraments  administered,  and,  above  all, 
the  Bishopric  filled.  Where  should  he  look  for 
aid  ?  Paulinus  had  fled,  and  was  now  Bishop  of 
Rochester.  He  looked  for  help  nearer  home.  He 
and  his  brother  Oswy  had  spent  years  of  exile  in 
lona,  and  had  there  learned  to  love  the  Celtic 
Church  and  its  holy  teachers.  Was  it  not  an  evi- 
dent fulfilment  of  the  famous  prophecy  of  Co- 
lumba,  that  to  lona  would  come  great  honor,  not 
only  from  Scottish  kings  and  people,  but  from 
the  kings  of  other  nations  also,  when  to  lona  the 
Northumbrian  king  sent  his  request  for  a  Bishop, 
who  should  build  up  the  church  of  God  in  his  land. 
The  request  was  joyfully  received,  and  a  Bishop 
named  Corman  was  sent  into  Northumbria.  But 
Corman,  though  a  good  man,  was  ill-suited  for 
that  work,  and  he  soon  returned  to  the  Scottish 
monastery.  On  telling  how  he  could  do  noth- 
ing with  the  barbarians  of  Northumbria,  a  gentle 
voice  asked,  "  Did  you  not,  good  brother,  forget 


84  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

the  apostolic  maxim  about  milk  for  babes  ?"  The 
speaker  was  Aidan,  one  of  the  most  lovable  of 
men,  upon  whom  the  choice  of  the  brethren  at 
once  fell.  Going  forth  as  a  missionary  Bishop, 
Aidan  settled  not  at  York,  but  at  the  Isle  of  Lin- 
disfarne,  off  the  coast,  and  there  made  a  second 
lona.  From  that  Holy  Island,  watered  by  the 
North  Sea,  a  race  of  missionaries  came  that  real- 
ly made  England  Christian.  Of  these  Aidan  was 
the  first  and  greatest.  But  mark  this  well — Aidan, 
who  came  forth  from  the  Celtic  mission  station  at 
lona,  a  missionary  Bishop  of  the  Celtic  Church, 
consecrated  by  Bishops  of  that  Church  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  Northumbrian  king,  whose  lot  it  was 
never  to  meet  Roman  missionaries  nor  to  have 
dealings  with  Rome,  is  yet  acknowledged  by 
Rome  as  a  canonized  saint. 

The  mission  there  begun  again  was  carried  on 
with  faith  and  zeal.  Soon  an  event  happened 
which  gave  a  great  impetus  to  the  missionary 
work.  Peada,  a  son  of  Penda,  came  from  Mercia 
to  ask  for  the  sister  of  Oswald  to  wife.  In  the 
train  of  the  princess  went  four  priests  of  lona 
into  the  heart  of  Penda's  territory,  to  preach  the 
Gospel  there.  One  of  these  priests,  Diuma,  be- 
came Bishop  of  the  Mercians,  and  another,  Cedd, 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  SAXONS      85 

went  farther  southward — far  into  the  land  of 
the  East  Saxons,  where  nearly  forty  years  before 
Mellitus  had  abandoned  his  Bishopric.  There 
Cedd  did  a  brave  and  good  work,  and  laid  foun- 
dations well  and  strong,  like  a  wise  master-builder. 
Thus  everywhere  the  Celtic  missionaries  were 
strengthening  the  things  which  remained,  which 
were  ready  to  die,  and  recovering  the  waste  places. 
With  them  the  word  of  God  was  not  bound. 
They  preached  without  let  or  hindrance.  It  was 
not  so  with  the  Italians,  as  if  an  invisible  hand 
held  them  back,  they  could  do  nothing  beyond 
Kent ;  to  that  little  corner  they  seemed  confined. 
Their  missionaries  had  indeed  gone  forth  thence 
in  a  spirit  worthy  of  all  honor  to  win  new  con- 
quests, but  a  strange  fatality  pursued  them. 
Their  work  often  came  to  naught.  Yet  where 
they  failed  the  Celtic  teachers  succeeded. 

At  length  the  time  came  when  the  long  series 
of  victories  over  the  outer  works  of  paganism 
were  to  be  followed  by  the  fall  of  the  citadel  it- 
self. For  many  years  Penda  had  reigned  the  prop 
and  support  of  heathenism.  At  last  the  fate  he 
had  meted  out  to  others  came  to  himself.  Seized 
with  the  ambition  to  extend  his  borders,  he  came 
into  Northumbria  determined  to   make  it  a  part 


86  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  his  own  kingdom.  Under  Oswy,  the  king  who 
had  succeeded  Oswald,  his  elder  brother,  the 
Northumbrians  met  the  Mercians  in  the  final  battle 
between  paganism  and  Christianity.  ''  Relying  on 
Christ  their  Leader,"  Oswy  entered  the  battle. 

Penda  had  an  army  like  that  of  Ben-hadad,  at- 
tended by  thirty  chiefs  of  princely  rank  with  their 
auxiliaries,  while  Oswy  had  a  mere  handful.  But 
the  race  is  not  always  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle 
to  the  strong ;  Penda  was  slain  and  his  mighty 
host  was  scattered. 

That  day  must  always  remain  a  red-letter  day 
•in  Anglican  Church  history.  The  plains  of 
Yorkshire  witnessed  the  fall  of  paganism  ;  since 
then  no  secular  power  in  Britain  has  ever  drawn 
the  sword  for  a  heathen  god. 

The  time  was  now  fast  approaching  when  the 
seven  Saxon  nations  would  become  one,  but  the 
main  factor  in  the  accomplishment  of  that  grand 
result  would  be  the  Christian  Church.  Unity  in 
temporal  matters  would  be  suggested  and 
brought  about  by  unity  in  spiritual.  This  would 
be  the  teaching  force  of  the  spectacle  of  "  the  one 
Lord,  the  one  Faith,  the  one  Baptism  "  in  the 
Church.  But  at  present,  as  in  civil  and  political 
life,  so  in  ecclesiastical.     There  was  no  unity  of 


OUR   CHURCH   UNDER  THE   SAXONS  8/ 

action.  We  have  seen  that  missionaries  in  Kent 
labored  independently  of  missionaries  in  Nor- 
thumbria.  There  were  other  missionaries,  too,  la- 
boring independently  of  either  in  the  other  Sax- 
on kingdoms.  Birinus,  a  Bishop  consecrated  in 
Gaul,  labored  amongst  the  Saxons  of  Wessex  ;  Fe- 
lix, a  Bishop  of  Burgundy,  and  Fursey,  an  Irish 
monk,  labored  together  in  Anglia  with  great  suc- 
cess, where  two  Italian  missions  had  previously 
failed,  and  lastly,  Wilfrid,  a  monk  of  Lindisfarne, 
preached  to  the  wSaxons  of  Sussex. 

These  were  all  bringing  about  the  glorious  re- 
sult of  a  truly  national  Church,  whose  life  was 
in  itself.  Scotch  and  Irish,  Burgundians  and  Ital- 
ians, all  were  workers  in  that  vineyard  of  the 
Lord :  to  whom  shall  we  yield  the  palm  ? 

Man  is  but  a  poor  judge  of  the  value  of  spirit- 
ual work,  and  ought  not  to  dogmatize  at  any  time. 
But  to  us  it  now  seems  plain  that  Scotland  of- 
ten succeeded  when  Italy  failed,  and  that  not  to 
Rome  but  to  lona  is  justly  due  our  greatest  debt 
of  gratitude.  Yet  after  all  what  matters  it?  For 
''  who  is  Paul,  and  who  is  Apollos  but  ministers 
by  whom  ye  believed  ;  for  neither  is  he  that  plant- 
eth  anything,  neither  is  he  that  watereth,  but 
God  that  giveth  the  increase." 


VI. 


THE   FIRST   PRIMATE  OF  ALL 
ENGLAND 


VI. 

THE  FIRST   PRIMATE   OF  ALL 
ENGLAND 

"  And  they  buried  him  in  the  city  of  David,  among  the  kings, 
because  he  had  done  good  in  Israel,  both  toward  God  and 
toward  his  house." — 2  Chron.  xxiv.  16. 

If  one  had  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  lofty  moun- 
tain in  England,  in  the  middle  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, and  from  thence  surveyed  the  whole  land 
from  Northumbria  to  Kent,  he  would  have  seen 
missionaries  at  work  in  all  the  seven  Saxon  king- 
doms ;  whilst  in  the  extreme  west  of  the  country, 
where  the  Saxon  had  never  penetrated,  and  where 
the  ancient  British  still  lived  untrammelled  and 
free,  he  would  have  seen  the  old  Church  of  Brit- 
ain, planted  and  watered  in  apostolic  times,  flour- 
ishing like  a  green  bay-tree  in  the  house  of  the 
Lord.  Of  the  various  bands  of  missionaries  none 
were  building  up  a  grander  spiritual  temple  than 
those  of  the  Celtic  Church.  That  Church,  rather 
than  the  Latin,  seemed  destined  to  be  the  domi- 


92  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

nating  Christian  influence  in  Western  Europe.  It 
early  gained  for  Ireland  the  name  of  the  Isle  of 
the  Saints,  whilst  its  missionary  successes  in  other 
regions  were  such  that  it  seemed  to  be  the  leaven 
leavening  the  whole  lump. 

"  Church  historians,"  writes  Haddon,  himself  a 
Church  historian,  ^'  cannot  be  far  wrong  in  saying 
that  a  mere  turn  of  the  scales,  humanly  speaking, 
prevented  the  establishment  in  the  seventh  cen- 
tury of  an  aggregate  of  Churches  in  Northwestern 
Europe,  looking  for  their  centre  to  the  Irish  and 
British  Churches,  and  as  entirely  independent  of 
the  Papacy  as  are  the  English-speaking  Churches 
of  the  present  day." 

Until  the  seventh  century  the  sight  might  com- 
monly have  been  witnessed  in  England  of  the  Cel- 
tic missionaries  succeeding  where  Italian  mission- 
aries had  failed,  and  of  Celtic  Bishops  filling  the 
Bishoprics  which  had  been  abandoned  in  fear  and 
despair  by  those  who  had  first  held  them.  Thus 
Cedd  filled  the  Bishopric  of  London,  from  whence 
Mellitus  had  fled ;  Aidan  the  Bishopric  of  York, 
from  which  Paulinus  had  fled ;  whilst  in  Mercia 
Diuma  and  Chad  ruled  with  gentle  sway,  where 
never,  since  the  earliest  days,  had  been  seen  upon 
the  mountains  the  feet  of  them  that  preach  the 


THE   FIRST   PRIMATE   OF   ALL   ENGLAND         93 

Gospel  of  peace  and  bring  glad  tidings  of  good 
things.  As  yet,  however,  there  was  no  "  Church 
of  England,"  properly  so  called.  Indeed  there 
was  no  England,  but  only  a  number  of  petty  king- 
doms, perpetually  at  war  with  one  another;  each 
kingdom  having  its  own  separate  and  indepen- 
dent mission  at  work  within  its  borders. 

But  such  a  view  from  the  mountain-top  would 
have  revealed  that,  diverse  as  were  the  sources  of 
the  missions,  yet  they  grouped  themselves  around 
two  great  centres,  and  practically  there  were  but 
two  S3^stems  at  work — the  Celtic  and  the  Italian. 
There  were  on  the  one  hand  the  missions  of  lona, 
sent  by  the  Church  of  St.  Patrick  and  St.  Co- 
lumba,  and  on  the  other  the  missions  of  Rome, 
sent  out  by  St.  Gregory  and  his  successors. 
Around  one  or  other  of  these  centres  all  mission- 
ary efforts  w^ere  grouped.  Soon  a  contest  for 
supremacy  arose  between  them.  Rome  unfurled 
her  standard  to  the  breeze,  and  in  reply  to  the 
challenge  the  Celtic  Church  unfurled  hers,  and 
summoned  her  warriors  to  the  battle. 

But  let  us  here  guard  against  a  possible  mis- 
take. It  would  be  to  forestall  history  to  suppose 
that  Rome,  at  this  early  date,  had  put  forth  those 
claims  of  universal  dominion  which   she,  unhap- 


94  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

pily  and  to  the  lasting  injury  of  Christendom,  put 
forth  in  after  years,  and  maintained  ever  since 
with  that  dogged  persistency  which  at  once 
raises  the  suspicion  that  she  feels  she  must  make 
up  for  the  weakness  of  her  case  by  the  very 
strength  and  dogmatism  of  her  assertions. 

However,  all  the  dogmatism  in  the  world  can- 
not alter  one  jot  or  tittle  of  the  facts  of  history. 
There  was  a  Church  in  Britain,  in  Scotland,  and 
in  Ireland,  which  had  all  along  maintained  its  own 
separate  and  independent  existence,  and  which 
had  begotten  sons  of  such  glorious  character  and 
such  distinguished  careers  that  even  the  Latin 
Church,  with  a  catholicity  and  a  large-hearted- 
ness  which  it  has  rarely,  if  ever,  shown  since, 
folded  them  in  loving  embrace  and  called  them 
Saints  in  the  Holy  Church  of  God.  Thus  she 
loved  Patrick  and  Aidan,  until  in  a  later  age  she 
forgot  that  they  were  not  hers,  but  the  children 
of  her  old  rival — the  sister  Church  in  the  isles  of 
Britain. 

We  have  said  that  a  contest  for  supremacy 
arose  between  the  two  Churches :  this  was  fought 
out  at  Whitby,  in  Yorkshire,  where  the  Romans 
were  victorious. 

The  proper  time  for  keeping  the  Easter  festival 


THE   FIRST   PRIMATE   OF   ALL   ENGLAND         Q^ 

was  the  chief  subject  for  discussion  at  that  coun- 
cil, as  it  was  also  the  immediate  cause  of  its  being 
held. 

The  Churches  in  Britain  had,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  method  of  keeping  Easter  unlike  that  generally 
observed  in  Western  Christendom.  Augustine 
had,  without  success,  tried  to  persuade  the  British 
Bishops  to  change  this  custom.  At  Whitby  this 
question  was  again  opened,  and,  to  the  dismay  of 
the  Celtic  missionaries,  their  time-honored  custom 
was  condemned,  and  that  of  their  rivals  held  in 
honor. 

Oswy,  King  of  Northumbria,  had  married  a 
daughter  of  Edwin  and  Ethelburga,  one  of  the 
children  whom  Paulinus  had  trained.  Oswy 
favored  the  Celtic  customs,  for  he  had  been 
trained  at  lona;  but  his  queen  favored  the  Italian 
custom,  for  she  had  been  taught  by  Kentish  mis- 
sionaries. Moreover,  the  tutor  of  her  family  was 
Wilfrid,  a  monk  of  Lindisfarne,  and  one  who  both 
by  birth  and  early  training  was  a  Celtic  church- 
man, but  who  had  become  a  great  admirer  of 
Rome,  and  a  strong  advocate  of  her  claims.  But 
two  could  not  walk  together  except  they  were 
agreed.  Oswy  and  part  of  the  court  were  soon 
keeping  high  festival  in  honor  of  Christ's  resur- 


g6  LECTURES    ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

rection,  whilst  the  queen  and  the  other  half  of  the 
court  were  observing  the  most  solemn  time  of  the 
Lenten  Fast.  And  the  Council  of  Whitby,  in  664, 
to  establish  uniformity  of  usage  and  custom,  was 
the  not  unnatural  result. 

King  Oswy  opened  the  proceedings  by  urging 
the  benefits  of  uniformity  of  custom  among  those 
who  were  united  in  one  faith,  and  then  briefly 
stated  the  subject  for  discussion  : 

They  were  to  determine  what  was  the  right 
day  on  Avhich  to  observe  Easter.  Colman,  Bishop 
of  Lindisfarne,  argued  for  the  Celtic  custom,  and 
claimed  for  it  the  authority  of  St.  Columba,  and 
above  all,  of  St.  John.  Wilfrid  was  spokesman 
for  the  other  side.  He  admitted  the  truth  of  Col- 
man's  statement,  but  claimed  that  St.  Peter,  whose 
teaching  he  followed,  was  of  higher  authority 
than  St.  John,  for  that  he  kept  the  keys  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  Turning  to  the  Bishop  of 
Lindisfarne,  the  king  asked  if  the  words  used  by 
Wilfrid  had  ever  been  spoken  by  the  Lord  to  St. 
Peter.  The  Bishop  replied  that  they  had  been 
certainly  spoken.  Then  said  the  king  with  a 
quiet  smile,  but  yet  not  wanting  in  seriousness  : 
"  And  I  say  unto  you  both,  that  this  is  that  door- 
keeper whom  I  do  not  choose  to  gainsay,  but  as 


THE   FIRST  PRIMATE   OF   ALL   ENGLAND         97 

far  as  I  know  and  am  able,  I  desire  in  all  things  to 
obey  his  rulings,  lest  haply  when  I  come  to  the 
doors  of  the  kingdom  I  may  find  none  to  unbar 
them,  if  he  is  adverse  to  me  who  is  proved  to 
hold  the  keys." 

The  decision  was  a  severe  blow  to  the  Celtic 
members.  In  their  judgment  it  was  not  only 
disrespectful  to  the  memory  of  Columba,  but  it 
compromised  the  independence  of  their  national 
Church.  Colman  at  once  resigned  his  Bishopric 
and  returned  to  his  old  home.  Doubtless  he 
thought  of  it  as  a  victory  for  Rome,  but  it  was 
rather  a  victory  of  the  universal  Church  against 
lona.  Of  course  Rome  profited  by  it.  From 
that  time  forward  Kent,  the  centre  of  Italian  mis- 
sionary work,  became,  in  place  of  Northumbria, 
the  centre  of  the  missionary  work  in  all  England. 

And  now  we  enter  upon  one  of  the  most  event- 
ful periods  of  Anglican  Church  history.  Within 
the  life  of  one  generation  men  were  to  become 
familiar  with  the  idea  of  building  up  a  great 
national  Church  out  of  all  the  scattered  elements 
of  Christianity,  and  they  were  to  see  that  idea 
visibly  embodied  before  them.  There  was  soon 
to  appear  one  of  the  grandest  men  in  all  the  long 
and    eventful    history    of  the    English   Church — 


98  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Theodore,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Under 
him  the  scattered  missionaries  were  to  leave  off 
building  their  small  and  independent  chapels,  and 
uniting  together  as  one  strong  and  compact 
body,  they  were  to  enter  upon  the  building  of  a 
mighty  cathedral  which  should  be  great  enough 
and  grand  enough  to  tax  all  their  energies  and 
enshrine  their  noblest  aspirations.  Very  rapidly 
w^as  the  change  effected. 

One  has  seen  in  a  play  the  curtain  fall,  and  on 
its  rising  again  a  wholly  different  scene  pre- 
sented. So  it  was  at  Whitby.  There  the  cur- 
tain fell.  In  the  interim  before  it  rose  ao^ain 
the  yellow  pest  raged  from  one  end  of  the 
country  to  the  other.  It  struck  down  high  and 
low.  It  swept  away  Tuda,  who  followed  Colman 
as  Bishop  of  Lindisfarne ;  it  swept  away  the 
Bishops  of  London  and  Rochester,  and  spared 
not  the  King  of  the  Kentish  men,  nor  the  Arch- 
bishop ot  Canterbury  himself. 

When  the  curtain  was  lifted  again,  Wilfrid  had 
become  Bishop  of  York,  and  Theodore,  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury. 

The  appointment  of  Wilfrid  to  York  was  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  w^orld,  but  who  could 
have  predicted  the  future  life  of  Theodore  when 


THE   FIRST   PRIMATE   OF   ALL   ENGLAND         99 

a  Greek  monk  at  Tarsus  ?  The  providence  of 
God  in  the  choice  of  Theodore  was  plainly  mani- 
fest. His  appointment  was  indeed  providential. 
As  soon  as  the  plague  ceased,  and  the  Church 
could  take  measures  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel, 
it  was  decided,  with  the  joint  approval  of  the 
Kings  of  Northumbria  and  Kent,  to  choose  an 
Archbishop  from  among  the  native  clergy,  and  to 
send  him  to  Rome  for  consecration.  In  this  way 
they  thought  to  secure  greater  uniformity  of  wor- 
ship and  to  reconcile  the  more  or  less  discordant 
and  jarring  elements.  Whereupon  the  two  kings 
chose  Wighard,  one  of  the  Kentish  clergy,  and 
sent  him  to  Rome  for  consecration.  But  in 
Rome  Wighard  and  nearly  all  of  his  companions 
were  carried  off  by  a  deadly  pestilence.  The 
Bishop  of  Rome,  Vitalian,  was  thereupon  re- 
quested by  the  two  kings,  himself  to  select  a  suit- 
able man,  and  having  consecrated  him,  to  send 
him  to  England.  This  Vitalian  agreed  to  do, 
but  he  had  undertaken  no  easy  task.  Britain 
was  far  away,  and  the  vacant  Bishopric  went 
abegging. 

At  last,  however,  a  man  v/as  found,  who  was 
destined  to  be  to  England,  as  his  name  implies,  a 
very  gift  of  God ;  and  who,  like  St.   Paul,  was  a 


lOO  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

citizen  of  Tarsus,  a  city  of  Cilicia,  and  was  like 
him,  too,  well  trained  in  secular  and  sacred  learn- 
ing, and  a  man  also  of  proved  character.  Conse- 
crated on  March  26,  668,  by  the  Bishop  of  Rome, 
the  first  x\rchbishop  of  the  English  Church  to  be 
thus  consecrated,  and  the  last  for  three  hundred 
and  fifty  years  afterward  ;  he  was  at  the  time 
sixty-six  years  of  age.  Think  of  a  man  at  such 
an  age — an  age  when  men  now  speak  of  them- 
selves as  old,  and  of  their  work  as  done — hesi- 
tating not  to  leave  his  home  for  a  foreign  land 
there  to  labor  among  a  people  whose  ways  were 
strange  to  him,  and  whose  language  he  did  not 
understand.  Yet  for  over  twenty  years  he  ruled 
the  Anglican  Church,  being  over  eighty-eight 
years  when  he  died.  And  he  so  ruled  it  that  of 
all  the  ninety-two  Archbishops  who  have  sat  on 
the  throne  of  Augustine,  none  have  been  more 
worthy  than  he.  Of  the  good  high-priest,  Je- 
hoiada,  it  is  written :  "  They  buried  him  in  the 
city  of  David,  among  the  kings,  because  he  had 
done  good  in  Israel,  both  toward  God  and  toward 
his  house."  So  the  same  honor  might  most  fit- 
tingly have  been  given  to  the  "  grand  old  man," 
as  Dean  Hook  calls  him,  who  on  the  second  Sun- 
day after  Pentecost — May  .27,  669— entered  upon 


THE  FIRST   PRIMATE   OF  ALL  ENGLAND        101 

his  work  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  seventy- 
two  years  after  the  arrival  of  Augustine. 

Soon  after  his  arrival  Theodore  made  a  general 
visitation  of  the  whole  country.  None  disputed 
his  authority.  He  was  at  once  and  universally 
accepted  as  the  Primate  of  all  England. 

Summoning,  in  673,  at  the  earliest  opportunity, 
a  council  of  his  Suffragan  Bishops  and  their  clergy, 
the  Churches  were  constitutionally  organized  into 
one  province  with  the  Archbishop  as  its  spiritual 
head.  From  that  Council — known  in  history  as  the 
Council  of  Hertford — the  English  Church  dates 
its  existence  as  the  National  Church  of  the  whole 
land. 

Having  thus  consolidated  the  Church,  Theodore 
next  proceeded  to  take  measures  for  its  more  ef- 
fective working.  His  first  act  was  to  divide  the 
larger  and  more  unwieldy  dioceses  into  two  or 
more.  Out  of  this  action  there  arose  the  first  ap- 
peal to  Rome  ever  made  by  an  English  Church- 
man. Wilfrid's  See  of  York  was  one  of  the  largest 
of  these  dioceses,  and  the  Archbishop  divided  it 
into  four  parts.  Wilfrid,  deeply  offended  at  this, 
lodged  a  personal  appeal  at  Rome.  Never  before 
had  such  a  thing  been  done,  and  little  encourage- 
ment was  given  to  any  Bishop  ever  to  do  it  again. 


102  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

When  Wilfrid  returned,  bringing  judgment  in 
his  favor,  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  traitor.  His 
letters  were  burned  and  he  himself  was  thrown 
into  prison,  from  which  he  was  only  released 
on  covenanting  to  depart  from  Northumbria. 
The  whole  incident  is  most  instructive,  for  all 
that  was  done  was  the  act,  not  of  a  despotic 
king,  but  of  a  national  Council  whose  presiding 
officer  was  the  only  Archbishop  consecrated  by 
the  Pope  whom  England  had  received,  or  was  to 
receive  for  centuries. 

Theodore  evidently  considered  that  he,  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  had  no  ecclesiastical  su- 
perior on  earth,  and  believing  this,  he  contended 
manfully  against  all  foreign  interference  with  the 
national  Church  of  which  he  was  Primate.  For 
this  we  honor  his  name  and  memory ;  but  not  for 
this  only.  It  was  under  him,  too,  that  the  rival 
missions  of  Celts  and  Romans  among  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  were  blended  together.  Their  Orders 
were  blended  too. 

Henceforth  there  was  a  double  line  of  Apos- 
tolic ministry  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church,  and 
when  by  degrees  the  British  Church,  leaving  her 
mountain  fastnesses,  came  forth  and  joined  in  the 
noble  work,  the  treble  stream  quickly  became  a 


THE   FIRST   PRIMATE   OF   ALL   ENGLAND        IO3 

mighty  river  flowing  on  to  make  glad  the  city 
of  God,  thus  making  the  Anglican  Episcopate, 
whether  in  England  or  America,  the  strongest 
Apostolic  succession  in  the  world.  Well,  indeed, 
then  do  we  compare  Theodore  to  Jehoiada  as 
having  ''  done  good  in  Israel,  both  toward  God 
and  toward  his  house." 

And  now,  in  bringing  to  a  close  this  lecture  on 
the  Anglo-Saxon  period  of  English  Church  his- 
tory, I  cannot  do  so  more  fitly  than  by  a  sum- 
mary in  the  words  of  Canon  Bright,  of  the  life  of 
that  devoted  saint,  the  Venerable  Bede,  whose 
history  (for  he  was  born  in  673),  falls  within  this 
period. 

**  He  is,"  says  Canon  Bright,  in  his  "  Early  Eng- 
lish Church  History,"  "  one  of  the  most  original 
personages  in  history.  And  he  is  more — he  is 
one  of  the  most  admirable  and  lovable. 

"  Bede  is  the  man  of  warm  heart,  whose  affec- 
tions go  out  to  brethren  and  pupils,  who  is 
spoken  of  as  a  '  dear  father '  and  a  '  most  be- 
loved master,'  and  the  man  of  thoroughly  pious 
soul,  who  '  shudders '  when  ignorantly  charged 
with  heresy  ;  calls  sin  by  its  right  name  in  monks 
or  prelates,  and  lives  in  the  thought  of  Divine 
judgment    and    Divine    mercy ;    who    describes 


I04  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

himself  through  life  as  rejoicing  to  serve  the 
Supreme  Loving-kindness,  and,  student  as  he  is, 
comes  regularly  to  the  daily  offices,  and  is  sup- 
posed to  have  said  in  his  sweet  way  that  the 
angels  must  not  find  him  absent ;  who  closes  his 
history  with  a  thanksgiving  to  the  '  good  Jesus ' 
for  the  '  sweet  draught '  of  Divine  knowledge, 
and  a  prayer  to  be  brought  safe  to  the  Divine 
Fountain  of  all  wisdom  ;  who  in  his  last  hours 
combines  a  loving  trust  in  God  and  a  desire 
to  be  with  Christ  with  a  sense  of  the  awfulness  of 
the  '  need-fare  '  and  the  doom ;  who  spends  his 
last  minutes  of  working  power  in  dictating  an 
English  version  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  calls  his 
work  ^  finished  '  when  the  last  sentence  has  been 
written,  and  passes  away  Avith  his  head  resting  on 
a  pupil's  hands,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  his  wonted 
place  of  devotion,  with  the  '  Gloria '  to  the  Trinity 
as  the  last  utterance  of  his  lips.  '  A  truly  blessed 
man.'  We  may  well  say  with  the  eye-witness  to 
whom  we  owe  this  record  :  a  man  '  venerable  '  and 
dear  to  all  generations  of  English  Christianity ;  a 
^  candle,'  in  the  words  of  the  great  St.  Boniface, 
*  which  the  Lord  lighted  up '  in  Northumbria, 
and  which  has  burned  with  a  calm  lustre  through 
the  centuries  that  have  canonized  his  name." 


VII. 
OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  NORMANS 


VII. 
OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  NORMANS 

"  I  will  make  them  one  nation  in  the  land," — Ezekiel  xxx.  22. 

Archbishop  Theodore  died  in  the  year  690, 
and  was  laid  to  rest  in  the  Monastery  of  Saints 
Peter  and  Paul,  once  the  palace  of  Ethelbert, 
King  of  Kent,  and  which  had  become  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury,  and  is 
now  St.  Augustine's  College,  whose  alumni  are  to 
be  found  in  every  part  of  the  world. 

But  just  a  century  later,  in  787,  the  first  of  those 
roving  bands  of  pirates  which  were  for  many 
years  to  trouble  the  peace  of  England  and  of  Eng- 
land's Church,  appeared  off  the  coast  of  Nor- 
thumbria.  They  landed  at  Whitby,  when  a 
panic-stricken  people  learned  only  too  late  the 
character  of  their  visitors.  They  were  the  rob- 
bers of  the  North  Sea.  Not  inappropriately  did 
they  fly  from  the  masthead  of  their  ships  their 
black  raven  standard — black  death  followed  in 
their   train.     Their   first   act  at   Whitby  was   to 


I08  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

massacre  the  people,  who,  suspecting  no  evil,  had 
poured  down  to  the  waterside  to  meet  them ; 
whilst  their  next  was  to  sack  and  destroy  the 
monastery  which  had  been  the  glory  of  the  town, 
but  which  was  now  the  innocent  cause  of  its 
ruin. 

The  Monastery  of  Whitby  w^as,  indeed,  famous 
throughout  England,  not  only  as  the  place  where 
the  great  Paschal  controversy  had  been  settled, 
but  for  the  value  of  its  sacred  treasures.  But 
alas  for  Whitby  !  The  King  of  Babylon  in  times 
long  gone  by  did  not  more  completely  despoil 
the  ancient  Jewish  Temple  of  its  treasures,  nor 
leave  it  in  greater  ruins,  than  the  Northmen  de- 
spoiled and  destroyed 

"  High  Whitby's  cloistered  pile  ;  " 

they  found  it  a  calm  and  peaceful  dwelling-place 
of  men  of  God,  they  left  it  a  smoking  ruin. 

But  this  was  only  a  beginning — an  instalment 
of  what  was  to  come  afterward.  Dark  days  were 
in  store  for  the  Church  throughout  the  land. 
The  ravagers  of  Whitby  were  but  the  forerun- 
ners of  others  who  would  come  in  swarms  to  de- 
solate the  land  with  fire  and  sword,  driven  on,  not 
only  by  a  thirst  for  plunder,  but  also  by  a  mad 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  NORMANS    IO9 

hatred  against  the  Saxon  Christians,  who  had  for- 
saken the  worship  of  Woden. 

Soon  others  came  and  plundered  even  the  sa- 
cred shrine  on  Holy  Island.  It  was  that  deed, 
more  than  any  other,  which  cast  a  spell  of  terror 
far  and  wide,  for  there  was  no  spot  in  all  England 
so  sacred  or  so  dear  as  the  Abbey  of  Lindisfarne. 

"  A  solemn,  huge  and  dark-red  pile 
Placed  on  the  margin  of  the  Isle. 

*'  In  Saxon  strength  that  abbey  frown'd, 
With  massive  arches  broad  and  round 
That  rose  alternate,  row  and  row, 
On  ponderous  columns  short  and  low, 

Built  ere  the  art  was  known 
By  pointed  aisle  and  shafted  stalk, 
The  arcades  of  an  abbey'd  walk 

To  emulate  in  stone." 

As  the  monks  fled  from  the  Holy  Isle  they 
saw  behind  them  the  glare  of  their  burning  home. 
Sadly  they  recalled  and  applied  to  themselves 
the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  words  which  they  had 
often  recited  in  their  daily  offices : 

"  O  God,  wherefore  art  thou  absent  from  us  so 
long?  Why  is  thy  wrath  so  hot  against  the  sheep 
of   thy  pasture  ?     Thine  adversai'ies  roar   in  the 


no  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

midst  of  thy  congregations  and  set  up  their  ban- 
ners for  tokens.  They  break  down  all  the  carved 
work  thereof  with  axes  and  hammers.  They  have 
set  lire  upon  thy  holy  places  and  have  despoiled 
the  dwelling-places  of  thy  name,  even  to  the 
ground.  Yea,  they  said  in  their  hearts,  Let  us 
make  havoc  of  them  altogether :  thus  have  they 
burnt  up  all  the  houses  of  God  in  the  land." 

Within  seven  years  every  monastic  institution 
in  Northumbria  was  swept  away.  From  Lindis- 
farne  to  Canterbury  there  was  an  unbroken  scene 
of  desolation.  And  for  miles  inland  the  land, 
once  like  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  became  a  waste, 
and  the  few  Christians  that  were  left  sat  down 
and  wept  when  they  remembered  their  goodly 
land  and  the  place  w^here  they  had  loved  to  wor- 
ship God :  "  Our  holy  and  beautiful  house,  where 
our  fathers  praised  thee,  is  burned  up  with  fire : 
and  all  our  pleasant  things  are  laid  waste."  So 
Isaiah  had  said  in  his  sixty-fourth  chapter,  and  it 
had  come  to  pass  in  their  time  that  the  prophecy 
was  fulfilled. 

To  the  men  of  that  day,  says  John  Richard 
Green,  it  must  have  seemed  as  though  the  world 
had  gone  back  three  hundred  years.  The  same 
northern  fiords  poured   forth  their  pirate   fleets 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  NORMANS    III 

as  in  the  days  of  Hcngist  or  Cerdic.  There  was 
the  same  wild  panic  as  the  black  boats  of  the  in- 
vaders struck  inland  along  the  river-reaches  or 
moored  round  the  river  isles ;  the  same  sights  of 
horror,  firing  of  homesteads,  slaughter  of  men, 
women  driven  off  to  slavery,  children  tossed  on 
pikes  or  sold  in  the  market-place,  as  when  the 
English  themselves  had  attacked  Britain.  Chris- 
tian priests  were  again  slain  at  the  altar  by  wor- 
shippers of  Woden ;  lettei's,  arts,  religion,  gov- 
ernment, disappeared  before  these  Northmen  as 
before  the  Northmen  of  three  centuries  before. 
Churches  were  again  the  special  object  of  attack ; 
invaders  again  settled  on  a  conquered  soil ;  hea- 
thendom again  proved  stronger  than  the  faith  in 
Christ." 

But  ''the  night  is  long  that  never  finds  the 
day."  As  soon  as  the  heathen  had  made  for 
themselves  a  home  in  the  land,  the  two  races 
settled  down  peaceably  side  by  side  and  became 
one  people.  The  Danes  readily  embraced  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Saxons.  The  conquerors  sank  into 
the  mass  of  the  conquered,  and  Woden  3'ielded 
without  a  struggle  to  Christ,  and  the  prophecy 
was  again  fulfilled,  ''  I  will  make  them  one  nation 
in  the  land." 


112  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH    HISTORY 

Yet  it  is  remarkable  how  little  permanent  trace 
the  Danes  left  of  their  invasion  and  settlement  of 
England  in  the  histor}^  of  the  Church.  That  his- 
tory would  have  been  written,  almost  identically 
as  it  has  been,  even  if  the  Danes  had  never  come. 
The  waves  of  persecution  indeed  rolled  over  the 
Church,  threatening-  at  times  to  overwhelm  her, 
but  they  left  almost  no  permanent  effects.  As  she 
came  forth  tried  in  the  fire  of  Saxon  persecution, 
so  she  came  forth  triumphant  from  that  of  the 
Danes.  But  there  zuas  this  striking  difference  in  the 
after-history  of  Saxons  and  Danes.  The  Saxons 
were  converted  from  without ;  the  Danes  were 
converted  from  within.  Italians  and  Celts  taught 
the  way  of  truth  to  the  Saxons,  whilst  the  ancient 
British  stood  idly  by ;  but  the  Saxons  became  mis- 
sionaries to  their  conquerors,  a  blessed  illustration 
of  the  principle  of  forgiveness  and  a  noble  in- 
stance of  obedience  to  the  command  to  do  good 
even  unto  enemies.  True,  the  Saxons  and  Danes 
were  both  of  the  same  Teutonic  race.  They  both 
came  from  the  north  country :  they  were  breth- 
ren. But,  brothers  in  blood,  they  found  a  closer 
tie  in  the  one  great  family  of  God.  That  was 
indeed  a  beautiful  sight  when,  not  long  after  the 
battle  of  Ethandune,  in  which  i\lfred  vanquished 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  NORMANS    II3 

the  Danes,  Alfred  stood  sponsor  to  the  Danish 
king  at  his  baptism,  and  gave  him  his  Christian 
name  of  Athelstan. 

It  was  during  the  life  of  King  Alfred — *'a  saint 
without  superstition;  a  scholar  without  ostenta- 
tion ;  a  Avarrior  all  of  whose  wars  were  fought  in 
defence  of  his  country ;  a  conqueror  whose  hands 
Avere  never  stained  by  cruelty  ;  a  prince  never  cast 
down  by  adversity,  never  lifted  up  by  insolence  in 
the  hour  of  triumph  " — that  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, under  his  guidance,  gave  proof  of  that  en- 
ergy which  had  preserved  her  national  and  inde- 
pendent character,  by  opening  a  communication 
Avith  the  Christians  of  the  far  east  in  Jerusalem 
and  Avith  Churches  in  India.  What  first  induced 
Alfred  to  send  such  a  mission  Ave  know  not,  but 
the ''  Chronicles  "  say  that  he  sent  ships  to  India 
Avith  alms  for  the  poor  Churches  there  Avhich  had 
been  founded  in  apostolic  times. 

•'  Behold  a  pupil  of  the  monkish  gown, 
The  pious  Alfred,  King  to  Justice  dear  ; 
Lord  of  the  harp  and  liberating  spear, 

Mirror  of  princes ! 
Though  small  his  kingdom  as  a  spark  or  gem, 
Of  Alfred  boasts  remote  Jerusalem  ; 
And  Christian  India,  through  her  wide-spread  clime, 
In  sacred  converse  gifts  with  Alfred  shares." 
8 


114  LECTURES  ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

We  enter  now  upon  the  Norman  period,  which 
begins  in  1066,  when  England  found  her  con- 
queror in  the  person  of  William  of  Normandy. 
At  the  battle  of  Hastings,  which  gave  the  crown 
to  William,  the  curtain  falls ;  when  it  rises  again 
the  English  Church  has  entered  upon  a  new 
phase  of  her  existence,  and  we  are  face  to  face 
with  what  has  been  termed  the  Mediaeval  Church, 
a  Church  which  has  fallen  under  the  domination 
of  the  Bishop  of  Rome. 

The  Normans  were  in  reality  Northmen  who 
had  been  settled  in  France  some  two  hundred 
years  before  the  conquest  of  England. 

But  they  had  long  ceased  to  have  anything  in 
common  with  their  forefathers.  They  were  now 
Frenchmen,  speaking  a  French  tongue  and  no 
other.  A  similar  process  was  to  go  on  in  Eng- 
land. They  were  there  to  become  more  English 
than  the  English  themselves,  and  there  was  to  be 
but  one  nation  in  the  land.  But  as  they  came  in 
on  the  flood-tide,  bearing  down  all  opposition, 
it  really  seemed  as  if  the  independence  of  the 
Church  had  gone  forever,  for  the  Papacy  had  no 
more  devoted  followers  than  they. 

It  required  no  prophet  to  predict  the  loss  of 
her  independence  by  the  English  Church.     Will- 


OUR   CHURCH   UNDER   THE   NORMANS  II5 

iam  had  received  the  blessing  of  Pope  Alexan- 
der on  his  attempt  to  subjugate  the  English  peo- 
ple, sailing  for  England  with  a  banner  blessed  for 
the  undertaking  by  him.  William  professed  that 
he  desired  to  bring  the  country  under  the  domin- 
ion of  the  Roman  See — hence  the  consecrated 
banner — and  this  was  the  surest  way  to  gain  the 
Pope's  approval ;  for  as  Mr.  Freeman,  the  histo- 
rian of  the  Norman  Conquest,  says  :  "  England's 
crime,  in  the  eyes  of  Rome — the  crime  to  per- 
mit which  William's  crusade  was  approved  and 
blessed — was  the  independence  still  retained  by 
the  English  Church  and  nation.  A  land  where 
the  Church  and  nation  were  but  different  names 
for  the  same  community,  a  land  where  priests  and 
prelates  were  subject  to  the  law  like  other  men, 
a  land  where  the  king  and  his  witan  gave  and 
took  away  the  staff  of  the  Bishops,  was  a  land 
which,  in  the  eyes  of  Rome,  was  more  dangerous 
than  a  land  of  Jews  and  Saracens." 

But  we  must  not  exaggerate  the  influence  even 
of  Rome  at  this  time,  although  it  is  easy  to  do  so. 
There  was  nothing  like  that  complete  surrender 
of  all  liberty  of  thought  and  action  which  we  ob- 
serve is  the  result  of  Roman  teaching  and  Roman 
claims  in  this  nineteenth  century.     The  assertion 


Il6  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  authority  went  far,  but  not  so  far.  How  far  it 
went  we  may  see  in  the  correspondence  which 
William  himself  had  with  the  Bishop  of  Rome, 
who  was  no  other  than  the  famous  Hildebrand, 
Gregory  VII. 

Hildebrand  had  asked  William  for  his  homage. 
William's  reply  must  have  been  a  startling  re- 
minder that  William  had  ceased  to  be  a  mere 
Norman  duke,  for  there  rings  out  in  his  words 
that  old  spirit  which  had  shown  itself  first  in  the 
reply  of  the  British  Bishops  to  Augustine,  and 
later  on  in  the  refusal  of  an  English  Parliament  to 
allow  Wilfrid,  Bishop  of  York,  to  go  unpunished 
for  having  appealed  to  Rome.  "  Homage  to  thee  I 
have  not  chosen,  nor  do  I  choose  to  do.  I  never 
made  a  promise  to  that  effect,  neither  do  I  find 
that  it  was  ever  performed  by  my  predecessors 
to  thine." 

This  was  indeed  a  strong  rebuke  to  Hildebrand, 
who  had  conceived  the  idea  of  making  the  papa- 
cy a  universal  monarchy.  The  Bishop  of  Rome 
was  to  be  supreme  ruler,  kings  and  princes  were 
merely  to  govern  in  temporal  matters  as  his  depu- 
ties. He  claimed  to  possess  not  only  the  ke3's  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  but  of  every  earthly  king- 
dom as  well. 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  NORMANS    11/ 

Already  the  Eastern  Church  had  protested 
against  the  extravagant  claims  of  the  Roman 
pontiff,  and  had  refused  to  bow  to  his  usurped 
authority  ;  and  the  Great  Schism  had  separated 
the  Church  in  the  East  from  the  Church  in  the 
West,  and  the  sorry  spectacle  had  been  seen  of  a 
Roman  Bishop  claiming  the  title  of  Universal 
Bishop — which  Gregory  the  Great  had  said  none 
but  Anti-christ  could  assume — excommunicating 
the  Eastern  Church  and  the  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople ;  and  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
on  his  part,  returning  railing  for  railing,  and  ex- 
communicating the  Roman  Bishop  and  the  West- 
ern Church. 

With  such  a  spirit  as  this  abroad,  and  with  such 
claims  put  forth  in  a  semi-barbarous  age  by  the 
Bishop  of  the  greatest  city  of  the  West,  when  the 
tide  of  corruption  was  rising  very  rapidly,  we 
may  not  wonder  that  the  influx  of  Norman  Bish- 
ops and  clergy  which  followed  in  the  footsteps  of 
the  Conqueror  led  to  the  binding  of  the  English 
Church  by  Roman  bonds.  But  it  was  a  struggle 
of  might  against  right.  The  English  Chvirch 
submitted  simply  because  she  could  not  help  sub- 
mitting. Constitutionally,  however,  she  never 
submitted    to    the    overlordship   of  the    Roman 


Il8  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Bishop,  and  through  all  her  long  history  no 
voice  of  hers,  uttered  in  synod  or  convocation, 
ever  acknowledged  that  she  was  a  part  of  the 
Roman  Church,  and  a  part  she  never  was,  never 
has  been,  and  we  may  well  add,  by  the  grace 
of  God,  never  will  be. 

But  to  William,  notwithstanding  his  sturdy  re- 
fusal to  allow  any  interference  with  the  secular 
affairs  of  his  kingdom,  we  owe  the  acknowledged 
interference  of  the  Pope  in  the  spiritual  affairs 
of  the  Church.  William,  in  fact,  regarded  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  as  the  spiritual  head  of  the 
Church,  and  he  acted  accordingl3^ 

Through  him  two  Cardinals,  in  lO/O,  presided  at 
a  synod  in  Winchester,  when,  for  the  first  time  in 
the  course  of  over  one  thousand  j^ears,  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  was  allowed  by  the  alien  Conqueror 
to  exercise  jurisdiction  in  the  English  Church. 
From  that  time  onward  the  Bishop  of  Rome  and 
his  successors  claimed  the  right  to  put  down  one 
and  set  up  another  in  that  Church. 

But  it  was  the  Church  of  England  still.  The 
strong  man  armed  might  have  broken  into  her 
house  and  robbed  her  of  her  gold  and  silver,  her 
plate  and  her  jewelry,  yea  even  of  freedom  itself, 
but  the  property  was  rightfully  hers,  and  she  was 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  NORMANS    I  19 

no  bond-slave  but  a  free  woman.  Bound  for  a 
time  she  was,  then,  in  her  own  house,  and  she  had 
the  mortification  of  seeing  thousands  of  gold  and 
silver,  in  the  shape  of  Peter's  pence  and  tithes  and 
first-fruits,  going  year  by  year  to  provide  for  the 
necessities  of  the  successor  of  the  Fisherman  who 
dwelt  in  apostolic  poverty  at  Rome;  but  she 
never  ceased  to  protest  against  her  unjust  treat- 
ment, even  when  she  lay  bound  a  helpless  captive. 
Then  the  day  came  when,  gathering  all  her 
strength,  she  threw  off  the  yoke,  and  in  those 
calm  words,  which  sum  up  in  one  sentence  the 
protests  and  the  struggles  of  five  centuries,  she 
asserted  her  rightful  freedom  from  ail  foreign  in- 
terference: "The  Bishop  of  Rome  has  no  juris- 
diction in  this  realm  of  England." 

Yet  even  after  the  power  was  broken  and  the 
chain  cast  away,  it  was  long  before  the  Church- 
men of  Reformation  days  could  feel  themselves 
safe.  Like  a  dread  nightmare  the  memory  of 
Egyptian  bondage  hung  about  them,  and  until  far 
into  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  they  continued  to  pray 
in  the  Litany,  "From  the  tyranny  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  and  all  his  detestable  enormities.  Good 
Lord,  deliver  us." 

Now  it  is  in  no  spirit  of  uncharitableness  that 


120  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

we  say  a  single  word  against  the  Roman  Church. 
Indeed  it  is  not  against  her  that  we  speak  at  all. 

We  are  not  dealing  with  Rome,  but  with  Eng- 
land and  America ;  not  with  that  Church  but  with 
our  own,  which  lays  this  burden  upon  us.  Canon 
21,  Title  I,  gives  charge  to  this  effect:  '^Minis- 
ters of  this  Church,  who  have  charge  of  parishes, 
shall  be  diligent  in  informing  the  youth  and 
others  in  the  Doctrine,  Constitution,  and  Liturgy 
of  the  Church."  We  desire  to  be  obedient  to  this 
teaching.  But  in  so  doing  we  must  of  necessity 
speak  of  that  other  Church,  for  the  history  of  our 
own  is  bound  up  with  it  like  the  history  of  twin 
sisters.  We  have  indeed  a  great  respect  for  that 
Church.  We  reverence  the  names  of  many  of  its 
Bishops  and  clergy.  We  acknowledge  the  great- 
ness of  the  work  it  has  done.  But  we  are  not 
blind  to  its  faults.  Yet  even  of  these  we  would 
not  speak  were  it  not  that  some  of  them  concern 
ourselves ;  of  its  unsisterly  conduct  toward  the 
national  Church  of  England  in  times  past — con- 
duct in  which  to  this  ver}^  day,  so  far  as  it  can,  it 
perseveres  Avithout  sign  of  repentance  or  amend- 
ment of  life — we  may  not  be  silent  if  we  would  be 
faithful  to  our  office  and  Church.  In  England 
and  in  this  land  she  is  a  Church  in  schism.      She 


OUR  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  NORMANS    121 

is  an  erring-  sister  who  is  under  the  strange  hallu- 
cination that  she  is  the  mother  and  mistress  of  all 
Churches. 

Here  we  take  our  stand.  We  are  not  rabid 
Protestants  seeing-  Rome  at  every  turn  as  an  ever- 
present  evil,  and  believing  that  the  Roman  Bishop 
is  unquestionably  the  man  of  sin  who  sits  in  the 
temple  of  God,  showing  himself  that  he  is  God. 
But  there  are  so  many  who  imagine  that  the 
Anglo-American  Church  was  once  a  part  of  the 
Roman,  that  for  Zion's  sake  we  may  not  hold  our 
peace  until  that  notion  is  consigned  to  the  cate- 
gory of  such  popular  fallacies  as  that  Columbus 
ever  discovered  North  America,  or  that  if  you 
hang  a  snake  upon  the  limb  of  a  tree  it  is  a  sure 
sign  of  rain. 

Like  old  Cato,  who  never  spoke  in  the  Roman 
senate  without  closing  his  speech  with  the  words 
— it  mattered  not  what  he  had  been  speaking 
about — "  Delenda  est  Carthago  "  (Carthage  must 
be  destroyed) ;  so  let  our  clergy  say,  with  refer- 
ence to  this  popular  fallacy  that  the  Anglo-Ameri- 
can Church  was  ever  a  part  of  the  Roman,  this  fal- 
lacy must  be  destroyed.  We  grant  that  through 
the  advent  of  the  Normans  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
carried  matters  in  that  Church  with  a  high  hand, 


122  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

but  it  remained  still  the  old  Church  of  the  land, 
and  our  own  Church  in  iVmerica  is  not  another  but 
the  same.  It  is  not  that  the  Church  of  England 
is  our  mother  or  our  sister;  she  is  identically  the 
same  Church,  just  as  the  Roman  Church  amongst 
us  is  the  same  as  that  from  which  Archbishop 
Satolli  has  come  to  keep  it  here  in  order. 

Submit  to  Rome  for  a  tim.e  she  may  have  done, 
as  the  various  national  Churches  of  Spain,  or 
France,  or  Austria  are  doing  to-day,  yet  she  is 
and  was  the  Church  of  England  all  through  her 
history,  and  when  Saxon,  Dane,  and  Norman 
dwelt  at  last  together  in  peace  and  harmony,  and 
God  had  made  them  one  nation  in  the  land,  then 
the  national  Church  rose  again  into  newness  of 
life  and  vigor ;  and  (in  the  words  of  Bishop  Cleve- 
land Coxe), 

"  Again  in  noble  English 

The  Christian  anthems  swell, 
And  out  the  organ  pealeth 
O'er  stream  and  stillv  dell. 


"  And  the  bells  swing  free  and  merr}% 
And  a  nation  shouteth  round, 
For  the  Lord  Himself  hath  triumphed 
And  his  Voice  is  in  the  sound." 


VIII. 
THE    BABYLONIAN    BONDAGE 


VIII. 
THE   BABYLONIAN   BONDAGE 

"Men  that  had  understanding  of  the  times  to  know  what 
Israel  ought  to  do." — i  Chron.  xii.  32. 

In  our  last  lecture  we  barely  crossed  the  thresh- 
old of  the  Norman  period ;  but  we  saw  suffi- 
cient to  indicate  its  general  character  so  far  as  it 
affected  the  Church  of  England.  It  was  a  period 
when  the  gold  had  become  dim  and  the  fine  gold 
changed.  A  period  which  recalls  God's  words  to 
Abraham  :  "  Know  of  a  surety  that  thy  seed  shall 
be  a  stranger  in  a  land  that  is  not  theirs,  and  shai' 
serve  them,  and  they  shall  afflict  them  four  hun- 
dred years,  and  also  that  nation  whom  they  shall 
serve  will  I  judge."  This  prophecy  might,  in- 
deed, have  been  originally  spoken  of  the  Angli- 
can Church,  so  signally  was  it  fulfilled  in  her  his- 
tory. Although  not  in  a  foreign  land,  but  in  her 
own,  she  yet  served  in  bondage  for  more  than 
four  hundred  years,  until  God  struck  off  the 
chain  that  bound  her,  and  gave  her  the  freedom 


126  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

for  Avhich,  like  a  bird  in  the  snare  of  the  fowler, 
she  had  long  pined  and  struggled. 

Now  in  declaring  in  the  last  lecture  that  not 
by  choice  but  by  necessity  do  we  speak  at  all  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  and  only  then  so  far  as  her 
doings  and  her  doctrines  are  bound  up  with  our 
own  history,  we  would  not  have  you  forgetful  of 
one  main  purpose  which  is  in  our  mind — to  show 
that  there  ^vas  from  the  beginning  a  national 
Church  in  England,  which,  entirely  independent 
of  Rome  in  her  origin,  has  been  rightfully  inde- 
pendent all  through  her  history  ;  so  that  even 
when  the  strong  man  armed  prevailed  against 
her,  she  unceasingly  raised  her  voice  against  the 
interference  from  which  she  suffered.  When 
Galileo,  brow-beaten  by  the  court  of  Rome,  was 
bidden  deny  that  the  earth  moves,  as  he  had 
taught  it  did,  he  vv^as  heard,  so  it  is  said,  to 
mutter:  "It  does  move;  it  does  move."  So  in 
like  manner  the  national  Church  of  England,  en- 
slaved by  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  protested :  ''  This 
land  is  mine ;  is  mine,  not  yours."  And  to  others 
she  said :  "  Mark  you,  I  pray,  how  I  have  built 
here  a  goodly  temple  for  the  Lord,  and  another 
seeks  to  rob  me  of  it ;  but  it  is  mine,  it  is  mine." 
But  as  we  remember   that  the  bondage  of  our 


THE   BABYLONIAN   BONDAGE  12/ 

national  Church  was  but  the  working  out  in  one 
place  of  a  vast  system  by  which  other  Churches 
had  also  been  deprived  of  their  freedom,  we  may 
ask,  not  unreasonably,  ''  How  came  such  a  S3^stem 
to  meet  with  the  success  it  did?"  Surely  we  have 
here  not  man's  work  only,  the  mere  workings  of 
a  boundless  ambition.  That,  indeed,  seems  to 
have  been  the  chief  force  in  that  old  Roman 
world,  when,  by  a  masterful  will,  the  republic 
was  swallowed  up  by  the  empire,  and  Augustus 
Cassar  became  absolute  lord  from  the  Tigris  to 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar.  Or  as  when,  in  later 
days,  the  first  Napoleon  passed  from  country  to 
country,  deposing  king  after  king,  until  he  had 
filled  the  thrones  of  Europe  with  mere  creatures 
of  his  own.  But  surely  there  is  something  nobler, 
better,  grander,  in  the  workings  of  the  Roman 
Church  toward  a  supremacy  unparalleled  in  gran- 
deur of  conception,  as  it  is  in  the  breadth  of  its 
sway  and  the  extent  of  its  dominion.  INIay  we  not 
believe  that  behind  a  Gregory  or  a  Leo  we  can 
see  God's  hand,  in  which  they  were  even  but  the 
unconscious  instruments  and  tools.  We  do  not 
doubt  that  God  was  bringing  about  His  purpose. 
It  is  often  thus.  Nebuchadnezzar  fulfilled  God's 
will  when  he  destroyed  the  Temple  and  carried 


128  LECTURES   OX   CHURCH   HISTORY 

the  Jews  into  captivity.  And  the  Papacy  served 
a  purpose  in  those  days,  which  we  call  the  "  good 
old  times,"  but  which  none  of  us  would  have  back 
again  even  if  we  could  ;  for  they  were  times  when 
might  was  right,  and  when  there  prevailed 

•'  The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan, 
That  he  shall  take  who  has  the  power, 
And  he  shall  keep  who  can." 

But  those  days  are  passed,  and  despite  the  dream- 
ings  of  the  prisoner  of  the  Vatican,  who  longs  to 
see  Hildebrand's  vision  realized,  those  days  will 
never  return.  The  world  will  no  more  go  back 
to  them  than  the  soldiers  of  this  generation  can 
be  persuaded  to  fight  with  crossbows  and  arrows. 

"  The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new, 
And  God  fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways. 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world." 

But  if  we  ask  for  those  causes  which  we  can  see 
and  tabulate,  in  the  working  out  of  the  present 
Roman  claims,  we  are  at  once  struck  with  the 
difference  between  early  and  late  positions  on  the 
subject.  We  are  now  told  that  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  is  srreat  as  the  successor  of  St.  Peter.  The 
early    Bishops   of   Rome,    however,  would   have 


THE   BABYLONIAN   BONDAGE  1 29 

told  you  that  their  greatness  depended  upon  the 
importance  of  their  historic  Bishopric. 

Here  is  the  first  great  cause  of  the  Roman  Bish- 
op's importance.  From  almost  the  very  first, 
they  were  inclined  on  this  ground  to  magnify 
their  office.  Victor,  Bishop  of  Rome  in  the  second 
century,  took  a  very  lofty  tone  in  a  contro- 
versy with  Polycrates,  Bishop  of  Constantinople, 
just  because  he  was  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  He 
gave  all  men  to  understand  that  he  was  no  Bish- 
op of  a  little  provincial  town,  but  the  spiritual 
chief  of  Imperial  Rome,  the  world's  metropolis. 

"  Ah,  man  dressed  up  in  a  little  brief  authority 
Plays  such  pranks  as  makes  high  heaven  weep ! " 

After  this  plan  had  been  worked  for  a  while, 
there  came  slowly  creeping  in  the  strange  teach- 
ing that  St.  Peter  had  been  at  one  time  Bishop  of 
Rome,  and  that  he  was  Prince  of  the  Apostles 
and  keeper  of  the  keys  of  heaven,  and  we  know 
not  what  besides  ;  and  this  theory  was  made  to 
do  its  part  toward  helping  the  growing  preten- 
sions of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  But  attractive  as 
it  was,  it  could  not  do  all  that  was  required  of  it. 
Darwin  was  not  the  first  to  realize  the  inconven- 
ience of  a  missing  link.  Granted  that  St.  Peter 
9 


I30  LECTURES    ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

had  been  to  Rome  ;  granted  even  the  extremely 
improbable  thing  that  he  was  ever  Bishop  there, 
what  had  the  line  of  Popes  and  Antipopes  to  do 
with  any  personal  gift  or  grace  of  St.  Peter,  any 
more  than  had,  say,  the  Pontifex  Maxim  us  or  the 
Pythia  of  Delphi  ? 

The  fact  is  that  the  missing  link  was  like  to 
have  proved  fatal ;  but  everything  comes  to  the 
man  who  can  wait.  One  mornincr  in  the  ninth 
century  the  Pope  awoke  and  found  himself 
famous.  Certain  letters  had  been  found  which 
professed  to  have  been  Avritten  in  apostolic 
times,  and  in  which  all  that  the  Popes  desired 
was  granted  to  them.  These  letters,  which  are 
the  greatest  fraud  known  to  history,  are  the 
foundation  upon  which  the  Papacy  must  rest. 
They  are  the  Forged  Decretals.  Every  one  now 
acknowledges  them  to  be  forgeries,  but  they 
served  their  purpose.  A  voice  from  the  grave 
could  not  be  questioned.  The  Popes  only  too 
gladly  accepted  them  as  valid  and  governed 
themselves  accordingly ;  and  what  the  greatness 
of  Rome  could  not  do,  nor  yet  the  shadow  of  St. 
Peter,  was  done  in  a  single  lifetime  by  an  abom- 
inable act  of  fraud. 

When   the   Forged  Decretals    came   to  be  ex- 


THE   BABYLONIAN   BONDAGE  131 

amined  the}^  were  easily  proved  to  be  an  impu- 
dent and  clumsy  forgery,  as  manifestly  false  as  a 
will  written  upon  paper  which  at  the  date  of  the 
will  had  not  actually  been  invented. 

There  is  indeed  nothing-  to  show  that  the  Popes 
of  that  day  knew  these  documents  were  forger- 
ies; they  probably  did  not.  Singularly  enough, 
indeed,  no  great  scholar  had  been  Bishop  of 
Rome.  Doubtless  those  good  but  not  scholarly 
Bishops  were  imposed  upon.  Only  the  monk 
who  in  the  silence  of  his  cell  was  guilty  of  the  de- 
ception, probably  under  the  idea  that  he  could 
rightly  do  evil  that  good  might  come,  knew  in 
that  day  what  the  character  of  those  letters  really 
was.  But  oh,  what  shall  we  say  of  the  Pope's  in- 
fallibility ?  An  infallible  man  the  subject  of  de- 
ception ! 

Do  you  ask,  when  those  letters  were  proved  to 
be  false  why  did  not  the  Bishops  of  Rome,  who 
had  climbed  to  power  by  means  of  them,  begin 
with  shame  to  take  the  lowest  room  ?  Is  this 
your  question  ?  It  is  a  natural  one.  Bishop 
Coxe,  in  his  ''  Institutes  of  Christian  History," 
answers  it  admirably.  "  Did  you  ever  see  stone- 
masons turn  an  arch  ?  They  make  a  framework 
out  of  refuse  wood,  of  laths  and  scantlings,  any- 


132  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

thing  that  comes  to  hand.  A  few  nails  suffice  to 
hold  these  together.  They  set  it  in  place  on 
abutments  well  prepared,  and  then  begin  to  work 
in  stone.  They  soon  erect  the  arch,  and  set  the 
keystone,  and  build  upon  it  a  bridge  or  a  castle 
or  a  tower  that  reaches  to  heaven.  Then  no 
longer  any  need  of  the  framework ;  a  beggar  may 
kick  it  out  and  turn  it  into  fuel  to  boil  his  soup  ; 
but  the  arch  remains  for  ages.  So  the  decretals 
have  disappeared,  but  that  arch  of  pride,  the  Pa- 
pacy, stands  the  firmer  because  of  all  that  has 
been  built  upon  it.  And  then  the  arch  itself  is 
old  and  interesting  ;  it  is  ivy-clad  and  green  with 
associations  of  poesy  and  romance." 

We  have  treated  this  matter  at  some  length  in 
order  that  you  may  understand  that  the  Papacy 
was  something  comparatively  new,  and  hence  had 
not  that  prestige  in  those  days  which  it  has  often 
now.  For  this  alone  will  explain  why  it  was  that 
such  a  man  as  Theodore,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, after  being  appointed  to  his  Archbishopric 
by  the  Pope,  should  evidently  assume  that  he 
was  under  no  canonical  obedience  to  him.  No 
Roman  x\rchbishop  in  these  days  could  take  that 
independent  position  ;  indeed,  accustomed  so  long 
to  regard   themselves   as   merely   agents   of   the 


THE   BABYLONIAN   BONDAGE  1 33 

Roman  See,  it  would  hardly  ever  occur  to  them 
to  do  so  ;  and  yet  in  those  times  the  Archbishops 
of  Canterbury  were  constantly  seen  resisting  en- 
croachments of  the  Popes.  We  shall  see  that 
this  was  the  case  all  through  this  period.  Lan- 
franc  at  the  beginning,  and  Langton  later  on,  al- 
though one  was  an  Italian,  the  other  an  English- 
man, both  resented  any  interference  as  uncalled 
for  and  uncanonical  ;  and  even  Anselm,  strong- 
and  fervent  admirer  as  he  was  of  the  See  of 
Rome — a  second  Wilfred  in  his  devotion — even 
Anselm  sent  off,  without  a  hearing,  a  Legate 
whom  the  Pope  had  ventured  to  send  into  Eng- 
land. But  they  were  men  that  had  understand- 
ing of  the  times,  to  know  what  Israel  ought 
to  do. 

Let  us  make  these  statements  good.  In  this  lec- 
ture we  shall  not  go  beyond  the  reign  of  Henry 
III.,  which  ended  about  the  middle  of  the  Nor- 
man period,  i.e.,  the  latter  part  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  for  then  the  reaction  set  in  which  found 
its  goal  in  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. Until  Henry's  reign  matters  in  the  Church 
were  getting  worse  and  worse  ;  after  his  reign 
they  began  to  get  better  and  better.  Henry  was 
the  eldest  son  of  John  of  infamous  memory,  and, 


134  LECTURES    ON   CHURCH    HISTORY 

to  use  the  scriptural  phrase,  "  He  walked  in  the 
ways  of  his  father,  and  did  evil  in  the  sight  of  the 
Lord." 

The  general  character  of  this  period  was  dark, 
and  yet  there  was  a  continual  assertion  of  the 
riofhts  of  the  National  Church.  At  one  time 
those  rights  were  asserted  by  the  king  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  Archbishops  and  Bishops;  at  one  time 
by  the  Archbishops  and  Bishops  in  opposition  to 
the  king,  and  then  again  by  the  two  together  ; 
but  in  one  way  or  another  the  captive  Church 
never  failed  to  assert  her  rightful  place.  Let  us 
observe  this. 

The  first  Norman  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
was  Lanfranc,  b}^  birth  an  Italian,  who  had  been 
Abbot  of  Bee,  and  might  have  become  an  Arch- 
bishop in  Normandy.  But  it  was  reserved  for  him, 
as  another  Theodore,  at  sixty-six  years  of  age,  to 
assume  the  government  of  the  Church  in  distant 
England.  Under  him,  ItaHan  as  he  was,  Anglican 
liberties  were  openly  asserted  and  were  perfectly 
safe.  Lanfranc  was  succeeded  by  Anselm,  one  of 
the  saintliest  of  men  and  one  of  the  most  scholar- 
ly, but  a  great  admirer  of  Rome.  Anselm  wished 
to  go  to  Rome  to  receive  investiture  there  as 
Archbishop ;  but  to  this  William  Rufus  would  not 


THE   BABYLONIAN   BONDAGE  I35 

agree.  When  Anselm  pleaded  a  Roman  canon, 
the  king  simply  asked,  what  had  he  to  do  with  a 
Roman  canon  ?  saying  he  would  never  renounce 
a  right  which  he  had  inherited.  The  Bishops,  to 
their  honor  be  it  said,  supported  the  king  and 
maintained  the  customs  of  the  Church  of  the  land. 
Not  long  after,  the  king  declared,  "  So  long  as  he 
lived  he  would,  God  helping  him,  never  permit 
the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  kingdom  of  Eng- 
land to  be  diminished  ;  "  and  added,  "  that  even  if 
he  should  be  inclined  to  yield,  which  God  forbid, 
his  nobles  would  not  tolerate  it."  He  hoped 
therefore  the  Pope  would  not  drive  him  to  the 
extreme  measure  of  renouncing  all  intercourse 
with  the  See  of  Rome. 

The  whole  trouble  between  William  Rufus  and 
Anselm  arose  out  of  a  question  as  to  who  should 
appoint  the  Bishops.  The  kings  had  claimed 
that  privilege,  and  as  a  sign  of  their  right  they 
invested  the  new  Bishop  with  his  ring  and  staff. 
But  Gregory  VII.  had  objected  to  this,  and  ere 
the  question  was  settled  sixty  battles  had  been 
fought  and  countless  lives  lost ;  and  not  till  fifty- 
six  years  after  the  question  arose  was  it  practi- 
cally settled  against  the  Pope  and  in  favor  of 
the   king,  the  latter  giving  up  the   form  but  re- 


136  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

taining  the  substance,  by  ceasing  to  deliver  the 
ring  and  staff,  but  continuing  to  nominate  the 
Bishop  ! 

In  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  the  first  Plantage- 
net,  another  question  arose.  At  the  Conquest  the 
clergy  had  obtained  the  right  to  be  tried  in  their 
own  courts  and  by  their  own  orders.  The  king 
wished  to  bring  the  clergy  again  under  the  same 
temporal  discipline  as  the  lait}^  a  thing  which 
seems  both  reasonable  and  desirable.  But  noth- 
ing would  induce  the  then  Archbishop,  Thomas 
a  Becket,  to  agree  to  it.  Finall}^  after  a  few 
hasty  words  from  the  king,  in  his  own  cathedral 
the  x\rchbishop  was  slain.  It  has  been  styled  a 
martyrdom.  It  was  undoubtedly  an  inexcusable 
and  cruel  murder,  and  as  a  matter  of  policy  a 
gigantic  mistake.  Not  until  the  Reformation  was 
that  change  entirely  effected.  The  king  was 
humbled  to  the  dust.  He  became  the  sinner, 
whilst  Becket  became  the  saint.  In  Canterbury^ 
the  scene  of  martyrdom,  a  splendid  shrine  arose. 
It  was  the  most  popular  shrine  in  Europe ;  and  so 
great  were  the  crowds  that  came  to  worship  there 
that  the  stone  floor  where  they  knelt  is  percepti- 
bly worn  away.  But  the  king,  although  he  had 
been  vanquished,  was  yet  struggling  for  the  right. 


THE   BABYLONIAN   BONDAGE  I37 

lie  was,  however,  ahead  of  his  age.  The  Church 
and  the  world  were  not  ripe  for  the  change. 
Of  him  we  cannot  say  that  he  had  understanding 
of  the  times,  though  he  knew  what  Israel  ought 
to  do. 

But  we  come  now  to  a  man  who,  of  all  men, 
had  understanding  of  the  times,  and  to  whom  God 
gave  grace  and  power  to  be  true  to  himself,  his 
people,  his  Church,  and  even  to  the  worthless 
king  whom  he  withstood.  This  was  Stephen 
Langton,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  the  time 
of  King  John.  Hildebrand  had  been  long  gath- 
ered to  his  fathers,  but,  animated  by  the  same 
spirit,  Innocent  III.  now  ruled  in  Rome.  During 
the  pontificate  of  this  Pope  it  was  that,  upon  his 
bended  knee.  King  John  resigned  his  throne  and 
his  crov/n  to  the  Pope  through  his  Legate,  the 
Roman  Subdeacon,  Pandulf. 

It  w^as  enough.  None  reach  the  depth  of  base- 
ness all  at  once,  but  John  had  at  last  reached  it. 
He  had,  however,  given  what  was  not  his  to  give; 
he  had  attempted  to  part  with  the  patrimony  of 
another,  and  if  he  would  not  wholly  lose  his  throne 
he  must  acknowledge  this  and  repent  of  his  folly. 
Magna  Charta  was  the  result.  Stephen  Langton 
became  the  leader  of  the  army  of  God  and  Holy 


138  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

Church ;  and  he  and  the  barons,  with  the  whole 
English  nation  at  their  back,  forced  from  the 
king  that  Charter,  which  lives  still  in  the  common 
law  both  of  England  and  America! 

But  just  as  if  the  Archbishop  foresaw  the  rise 
of  the  future  heresy,  that  the  national  Church 
was  once  a  part  of  the  Roman  Church,  he  made 
the  very  first  of  the  seventy-eight  Clauses  to  run 
as  follows  : 

''  That  the  Church  of  England  shall  be  free, 
and  hold  her  rights  entire  and  her  liberties  invi- 
olate." 

The  charter  was  signed  by  King  John,  June  15, 
121 5;  and  let  us  note  well  that  in  the  judgment 
of  men  who  had  understanding  of  the  times,  the 
Church  in  England,  in  1215,  just  after  the  Pope 
had  asserted  himself  and  his  power  so  unmistak- 
ably, was  the  old  Church  of  the  land  and  not  an- 
other. Such  was  the  humiliation  of  the  Church 
and  nation  which  Innocent  III.  attempted,  al- 
though in  vain ;  but  who  shall  describe  the  feel- 
ings of  Innocent?  Who  will  do  the  Holy  Father 
the  injustice  to  repeat  all  he  said  in  the  heat  of 
baffled  passion  ?  He  even  annulled,  so  far  as  he 
could,  the  charter  itself.  But  as  well  m.ight  he 
have  bidden  the  waves  roll   back   at   his   word. 


THE    BABYLONIAN   BONDAGE  139 

Langton  had  a  nation's  support,  and  even  John,  in 
lucid  intervals  could  see  this. 

"  Thou  canst  not,  Cardinal,  devise  a  name 
So  slight,  unworthy,  and  ridiculous 
To  charge  me  to  an  answer,  as  the  Pope. 
Tell  him  this  tale ;  and  from  the  mouth  of  England 
Add  this  much  more — that  no  Italian  priest 
Shall  tithe  or  toll  in  our  dominions." 

Meanwhile  the  Anglo-American  Church  goes 
on  her  way.  Her  ablest  sons  have  shown  her 
what  she  ought  to  do.  But  oh,  that  there  would 
arise  a  Bishop  of  Rome  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
Langton ! 

There  is  an  old  legendary  story  w^hich  tells  us 
that  a  certain  Pope  was  once  accused  before  a 
Church  council  of  heresy.  He  was  found  guilty 
and  condemned  to  death.  But  it  was  found  that 
the  sentence  could  not  legally  be  carried  out 
without  the  consent  of  the  Pope  himself.  Then 
the  fathers  of  the  council  went  to  the  Pope  and 
stated  the  difficulty;  would  he  kindly  pass  judg- 
ment on  himself.  And  so  moved  with  pity  for 
the  dilemma  in  which  the  Church  was  placed,  he 
consented  to  their  prayer.  He  pronounced  judg- 
ment upon  himself  and  he  was  burned !  Where- 
upon in  gratitude  for  so  heroic   an   act  of   self- 


I40  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

denial  he  was  canonized  and  revered  as  a  saint  of 
the  Church.  It  is  a  mere  tale,  but  oh,  for  a  new 
Pope,  like  minded,  who  would  even  blot  out  him- 
self, if  thereby  he  might  help  on  the  unification 
of  the  Catholic  Church  ;  who  could  go  back  to 
primitive  times  and  Apostolic  Episcopate  for  his 
example,  and  himself  proclaim  from  his  lofty 
eminence,  ''  The  Bishop  of  Rome  is  willing  hence- 
forth to  be  but  one  of  the  chief  Bishops  of  the 
Church ;  and  claims  no  more  to  be  its  chief  and 
universal  Bishop.  Christ  is  the  One  only  real  and 
true  occupant  of  the  throne  of  the  Chief  Shep- 
herd ! "  By  doing  so  he  might  risk  his  life,  but  he 
would  be  the  last  of  the  Popes.  Infallibility  had 
then  abolished  the  office,  and  none  could  ever 
again  rise  to  claim  it.  The  race  had  come  to  an 
end,  like  that  of  the  Pharaohs  or  the  Mohican 
Indians. 

But  from  the  days  of  Linus,  Rome's  first 
Bishop,  to  that  day,  none  w^ould  have  deserved 
so  well  of  Christendom.  An  infallible  Pope  had 
gone,  but  a  Bishop  of  Rome  was  left  to  speak  the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth, 
and  to  prove  himself  a  man  that  had  understand- 
ing of  the  times,  to  know  what  Israel  ought  to  do. 
Through  that  act  of  simple  effacement  it  would 


THE  BABYLONIAN  BONDAGE        141 

and  it  could  not  be  long-  ere  the  Church  would  be 
united  again,  and  there  would  be  once  more  an 
undivided  Church,  with  one  Lord,  one  Faith,  one 
Baptism,  one  God  and  Father  of  us  all,  who  is 
above  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  us  all. 


IX. 

AN   ANGLICAN   ELIJAH 


IX. 
AN  ANGLICAN  ELIJAH 

"And  I,  even  I  only,  am  left ;  and  they  seek  my  life,  to  take 
it  away." — i  Kings  xix.  lo. 

The  scene, from  the  description  of  which  these 
words  are  taken  is  sufficiently  striking  to  have 
made  for  itself  a  very  marked  place  in  your  mind. 
We  need  not  enlarge  upon  it.  Elijah  the  prophet 
stands  forth  prominently  as  the  defender  of  the 
old  state  of  things.  He  pleads  for  the  old  altar, 
the  old  worship  and  the  old  creed ;  he  is  a  be- 
liever in  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  but  alas !  he 
seems  to  stand  alone.  That  love  of  novelty  and 
desire  for  change  which  is  so  marked  a  feature  of 
the  human  mind,  and  w^hich  exercises  so  much  in- 
fluence both  for  good  and  evil,  had  been  at  work. 
But  not  happily  ;  the  result  was  wholly  evil.  It 
was  not,  however,  wholly  so  bad  as  Elijah  im- 
agined it  was.  Looking  out  on  the  prospect  be- 
fore him  he  contemplated  it  with  the  gloomiest 
forebodings.     It  was  enough;  his   cup  of  sorrow 


146  LECTURES    ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

was  filled  to  the  brim  ;  he  was  ready  to  die.  He 
had  been  very  jealous  for  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts, 
but  all  his  efforts  seemed  to  have  been  in  vain. 
He  could  see  no  other  man  like-minded  with  him- 
self ;  he  only,  of  all  God's  prophets,  was  left,  and 
they  w^ere  seeking  his  life  to  take  it  away ! 

This  whole  scene  has  a  wonderful  parallel  in 
Anglican  Church  history.  In  the  fourteenth 
century  there  rose  a  man,  like  another  Elijah,  who 
seemed  at  times  to  stand  alone,  yet  he  Avas  not 
alone.  God  was  with  him,  and  He  was  making 
even  his  enemies  to  be  at  peace  with  him.  At 
one  time  He  raised  him  up  a  defender  in  John  of 
Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster,  a  prince  of  the  blood 
royal ;  at  another  He  caused  the  masses  of  the 
people  to  rise  and  stand  between  him  and  those 
who  were  seeking  to  take  away  his  life. 

This  man  was  John  \V3'clif,  the  leading  spirit 
and  the  master-mind  of  all  that  period — the  fore- 
runner of  the  Reformation ;  another  Elijah ;  a 
second  John  the  Baptist ;  a  great  schoolman  and 
yet  an  earnest  parish  priest,  who  had  put  forth 
his  hand  to  the  setting  up  again  in  all  its  beauty 
of  England's  spiritual  temple. 

Wyclif  has  been  called  the  morning-star  of  the 
Reformation !  and  yet  he  was  not  the  first  of  the 


AN   ANGLICAN   ELIJAH  147 

Reformers.  Before  him  Robert  Grostetc,  Bishop 
of  Lincohi,  and  William  of  Occam  had  entered 
upon  the  work  of  Reformation.  These  were  two 
great  and  loyal  Churchmen,  who  had  understand- 
ing of  the  times.  But  when  Wyclif  came  to  the 
front  it  must  indeed  have  seemed  that  God  was 
with  His  people  ;  that  He  had  not  cast  them  away, 
but  was,  on  the  contrary,  giving  them  such  man- 
ifest proofs  of  His  love  that  it  was  abundantly 
clear  the  national  Church  of  England  should  not 
want  a  man  to  stand  before  Him  forever,  to  be  a 
witness  for  the  truth  once  for  all  delivered  to  the 
saints. 

And  this  long  before  the  sixteenth  century ! 
How  foolish  and  entirely  without  foundation  is 
the  reproach  that  the  English  Reformation  was 
started  by  King  Henry  VIH.,  and  that  if  it 
had  not  been  for  that  headstrong  and  ambitious 
monarch,  there  would  have  been  no  Reformation 
at  all !  It  is  very  much  as  if  one  should  ascribe 
the  authorship  of  a  book  to  a  man  who  had  but 
befriended  the  publishers  of  some  subsequent 
editions ;  or  as  if  one  should  attempt  to  date  the 
Independence  of  America  from  the  passage  of  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment.  Why  do  not  such  peo- 
ple  learn  that  the   year    1894  comes  not  before, 


148  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

but  after  the  year  1594,  and  that  children  are  not 
the  authors  of  their  own  parents'  existence  ! 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  the  Reformation  of 
the  sixteenth  centur}^  was  not  the  outgrowth  of 
one  will,  nor  of  the  will  of  one  generation  of 
men.  If  Henry  had  never  appeared  at  all,  the 
English  Reformation  would  all  the  same  have 
come  to  pass.  "  For  the  fatherland  of  the  Eng- 
lish race,"  says  John  Richard  Green,  "  we  must 
look  far  away  from  England  itself."  So  for  the 
Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  we  must 
look  far  away  from  the  men,  and  the  times  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  It  is  Milton  who  tells  us 
that  had  it  not  been  for  the  obstinate  perverse- 
ness  of  the  Bishops  of  that  day  against  the  divine 
and  admirable  spirit  of  Wyclif,  and  for  their  en- 
deavors to  suppress  him  as  a  heretic  and  an  inno- 
vator, neither  the  Bohemian  Huss  and  Jerome, 
nor  yet  even  Luther  and  Calvin,  would  have  ever 
been  heard  of.  All  the  glory  of  the  Reformation 
might  have  belonged  to  that  national  Church  of 
which  Wyclif  was  so  distinguished  an  ornament 
and  so  loyal  a  son. 

In  x\nglican  history  we  have  certainly  no  man 
quite  like  him.  Yet  there  is  much  resemblance 
between  him  and  the  German  Reformer,  Luther. 


AN   ANGLICAN   ELIJAH  149 

In  one  respect,  indeed,  the  resemblance  between 
them  is  very  striking.  It  was  the  glory  of  each 
to  give  the  Holy  Scripture  to  his  countrymen  in 
their  native  tongue.  In  boldness  and  audacity 
and  in  fiery  temperament  the  German  stands 
easily  first ;  but  who  in  this  respect  is  like 
Luther?  As  we  see  him  setting  at  naught  the 
thunders  of  Rome  and  contemptuously  burning 
her  sentence  of  excommunication  against  him, 
we  at  once  think  of  that  stout  warrior  of  antiquity 
who  protested  that  the  bolts  of  Jove  himself 
would  not  turn  him  from  his  path  nor  stay  his 
hand.  Here  the  form  of  the  German  Reformer 
looms  large  before  men's  eyes  as  they  read  the 
history  of  those  times  ;  but  Wyclif  has  this  dis- 
tinction which  was  denied  Luther.  He  was  the 
first  to  tell  men  what  they  ought  to  do.  When 
Luther  lived,  the  demand  for  change  was  no  new 
thing;  the  air  was  already  laden  with  many 
sounds  and  loud  voices,  all  calling  for  reform. 
But  in  the  days  of  Wyclif,  though  men  felt  its 
need,  and  knew  that  all  was  not  what  it  should 
be,  they  felt  helpless.  They  were  as  if  in  the 
dark,  waiting  for  some  one  to  lead  them  by 
the  hand.  The  state  of  things  under  which 
they  had  grown  up  might  be  all  right  in    theory, 


ISO  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

but  it  was  plainly  and  terribly  wrong  in  practice. 
What  could  they  do  ?  Pray  ?  Yes,  we  doubt 
not  they  did  pray,  and  that  oh,  how  earnestly ! 

'•  Break  on  this  night  of  longing, 
Where  hand  in  hand  we  grope 
Through   wastes  of  vain  endeavor, 
'Neath  stars  of  fruitless  hope. 

"  Out  of  our  gloom  we  call  Thee, 
Out  of  our  helpless  night ; 
Sun  of  the  world,  sweet  Saviour, 
Show  us  Thy  perfect  light !  " 

Wyclif  was  God's  answer  to  their  prayer  for 
light.  With  him  the  morning-star  of  the  Refor- 
mation arose,  and  men  began  to  see  the  Avay. 
Robert  Grostete,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  had  indeed 
refused  to  confer  a  canonry  on  a  mere  child  at 
the  command  of  the  Pope ;  but  beyond  refusing 
obedience  where  obedience  was  palpably  wrong, 
the  good  Bishop  thought  not  of  going.  Wyclif, 
however,  prepared  for  war — and  waited  his  op- 
portunity. 

And  soon  in  the  providence  of  God  a  door  was 
opened  wide.  In  1378  Gregory  XI.  died;  where- 
upon the  French  and  the  Italians  each  elected  a 
rival  Pope  ;  the  French  selecting  Clement  VII., 
who  dwelt  at  Avignon,  while  the  Italians  chose 


AN   ANGLICAN   ELIJAH  151 

Urban  VI.,  who  lived  at  Rome.  These  rival 
Popes  at  first  spent  their  time  excommunicat- 
ing each  other,  but  at  last  appealed  to  force  of 
arms  to  maintain  their  respective  pretensions. 
Here  was  a  most  unedifying  spectacle.  A  man 
needed  not  then  to  be  more  than  a  sincere  lover 
of  the  truth  to  ask :  "  Is  such  a  Papacy  indeed  of 
God's  appointment?"  Wyclif  bade  men  learn 
the  lesson  of  that  divided  pontificate ;  not,  indeed, 
that  it  was  the  first  time  that  there  had  been 
scandalous  wrangling  for  the  possession  of  the 
See  of  Rome,  but  one  of  the  greatest  schoolmen 
looked  on  it  now,  and  with  resistless  logic  argued 
that  men  should  surely  look  elsewhere  for  their 
knowledge  of  Christianity  than  to  those  who 
were  so  shamelessly  proving  that  they  did  not 
know  what  spirit  they  were  of ;  moreover,  unto 
which  of  these  two  militant  Popes  should  they 
turn  for  guidance ;  no  one  could  tell  them,  none 
can  even  now  tell  which  one  of  the  two  was 
rightful  Bishop  of  Rome.  The  whole  matter  is 
usually  glossed  over  as  "the  great  Schism,  or  the 
Babylonish  Captivity  of  the  Papacy." 

Then  Wyclif  began  to  teach  men  to  go  to  the 
Scriptures  for  the  knowledge  of  the  truths  of 
Christianity  rather  than  to  the  decrees  and  tradi- 


152  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

tions  of  a  divided  Church ;  and  it  was  Wyclif's 
own  great  privilege  to  give  his  countrymen  the 
opportunity  to  read  in  their  own  tongue  the  won- 
derful works  of  God.  Parts  of  the  Bible  had,  as 
we  have  seen,  been  translated  before  his  day ; 
Bede,  the  Monk  of  Yarrow,  had  died  whilst  trans- 
lating St.  John's  Gospel,  and  there  were  others 
who  had  undertaken  the  noble  task  ;  but  it  was 
reserved  for  Wyclif  first  to  give  a  systematic  and 
complete  English  translation  of  the  whole  Bible, 
and  so  more  effectually  bring  its  teaching  home 
to  Englishmen's  hearts  and  consciences,  and  en- 
able them  trulv  to  say,  ''  Thy  word  is  a  lantern 
unto  my  feet  and  a  light  unto  my  paths." 

All  honor  to  Wyclif !  In  the  time  he  lived 
there  was  not  a  man  better  calculated  to  do  the 
work  God  raised  him  to  do.  And  yet  we  may 
be  thankful  that  he  did  not  live  in  the  sixteenth 
century  when  the  work  of  reconstruction  went 
forward.  If  the  Reformation  movement  then  had 
been  led  by  Wyclif,  he  would  in  all  probability 
have  anticipated  Calvin,  and  instead  of  Reforma- 
tion we  should  have  had  Revolution.  The  Apos- 
tolic Episcopal  government  would  probably  have 
been  discarded  and  a  work  of  wholesale  destruc- 
tion of  ancient  forms  entered  upon.     Yet  for  the 


AN   ANGLICAN   ELIJAH  I  53 

Special  work  to  which  God  called  him  he  was  ad- 
mirably fitted,  and  he  may  rightfully  take  his 
place  among  those  who  have  done  good  in  Israel, 
both  toward  God  and  toward  his  house. 

For  one  good  thing  which  Wyclif  did,  and  with- 
out which,  indeed,  he  could  have  done  but  little 
besides,  all  must  have  been  grateful  to  him.  He 
popularized  the  national  Church,  for  she  had  for 
a  long  time  been  intensely  unpopular.  The  old 
monastic  orders,  which  had  done  good  service 
in  an  earlier  day,  had  in  his  time  become  wealthy 
and  idle  ;  whilst  even  the  new  orders  of  mendi- 
cant friars,  which  had  invaded  every  part  of  the 
land,  had  also  lost  their  original  poverty  and  be- 
come corrupt  and  time-serving.  But  worse  than 
all,  there  was  even  general  discontent  against  the 
Church's  doctrines,  when  \V3xlif  appeared  as  a 
reformer.  His  disciples  numbered  at  one  time  a 
third  of  the  population  of  the  whole  country.  It 
is  rarel}^  however,  that  any  great  popular  move- 
ment can  be  held  in  check  by  those  who  first  set 
it  in  motion.  It  was  so  then.  The  Lollards,  as 
Wyclif's  followers  were  called,  soon  became  a 
menace  to  the  nation.  From  attacking  abuses  in 
the  Church  they  passed,  naturally  enough,  to 
attacking  abuses  in  the  State.     Then  a  civil  re- 


154  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

bellion  of  such  alarming  proportions  arose,  that  it 
threatened  to  sweep  away  all  authority  both  in 
Church  and  State.  The  cry  of  the  mob  was  for 
perfect  equality,  and  their  popular  song  was : 

"  When  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span, 
Who  v^as  then  the  gentleman  ?  " 

Perfect  equality  !  Oh  what  a  dream  of  dreams  is 
this !  In  what  has  God  made  men  equal  ?  We  dif- 
fer from  one  another  in  a  thousand  different  ways. 
Humanity  lies  between  two  points  very  far  apart, 
but  we  can  understand  the  cry  well  enough,  and 
we  do  not  hold  Wyclif  responsible  for  its  being 
raised.  Like  the  modern  Socialists  and  Anarch- 
ists, the  Lollards  howled  for  the  abolishment  of  law 
and  order,  and  a  redistribution  of  all  property. 

Wyclif  died  in  1384,  and  was  buried  beneath 
the  chancel  of  his  own  church  of  Lutterworth. 
Years  after — incredible  sacrilege  ! — his  body  was 
exhumed  and  burned,  and  the  ashes  cast  into  an 
adjoining  brook.  But  the  brook  bore  them  to 
the  ocean,  and  carried  them — emblematic  of  the 
doctrines  he  preached — into  all  the  world. 

"  Wyclif  disinhumed, 
Yea,  his  dry  bones  to  ashes  are  consumed 
And  flune  into  the  brook  that  travels  near. 


AN  ANGLICAN   ELIJAH  155 

Forthwith  that  ancient  Voice  which  streams  can  hear 
Thus  speaks  (that  Voice  which  walks  upon  the  wind 
Though  seldom  heard  by  busy  humankind), 

'  As  thou  these  ashes,  Httle  brook,  wilt  bear 
Into  the  Avon,  Avon  to  the  tide 
Of  Severn,  Severn  to  the  narrow  seas, 
Into  main  ocean  they,  this  deed  accurst ; 
An  emblem  yields  to  friends  and  enemies, 
How  the  bold  teacher's  doctrine,  sanctified 
By  truth,  shall  spread,  throughout  the  world  dispersed.'  " 

We  have  spoken  of  friars  and  monks  ;  of  mon- 
asteries and  nunneries.  Were  these  not  orders 
and  institutions  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
you  may  ask.  No ;  they  were  the  orders  and  in- 
stitutions of  our  own  Church  as  it  then  existed. 
Long  before  the  Reformation,  and  to  a  great  ex- 
tent from  Wyclif's  teaching,  it  was  felt  that  their 
work  had  been  fulfilled  and  they  might  pass 
away.  At  the  Reformation  they  were  abolished 
as  being  no  longer  serviceable ;  but  while  they 
existed  they  were  parts  of  the  machinery,  not  of 
an}^  foreign  Church,  but  of  the  national  Church 
of  the  land  ;  a  Church  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
clung  to  all  its  rights  through  many  and  great 
vicissitudes,  never  failing  to  preserve  its  identity, 
and  to  keep  unbroken  its  connection  with  the 
Church  of  the  Lord  and  His  Apostles. 


156  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

This  Church  was  now  on  the  eve  of  purifying 
her  house  from  the  effects  of  evil  communica- 
tions ;  but  we  have  spoken  to  little  purpose  unless 
we  have  shown  clearly  that,  whether  under  the 
rule  of  Cassar,  when  Britain  was  but  a  province 
of  Rome's  vast  empire,  or  under  the  Saxon,  Dan- 
ish, and  Norman  kings,  it  was  always  the  same 
Church  ;  and  that  even  in  the  darkest  and  dreari- 
est period,  when  only  solitary  voices  pleaded  for 
truth,  God  had  not  left  Himself  without  wit- 
ness ;  there  were  even  then  thousands  in  Israel 
who  had  not  bowed  the  knee,  nor  kissed  the 
image  of  Baal ;  yea,  though  a  prophet  of  its  own 
could  truthfully  say,  "  They  seek  my  life  to  take 
it  away  !  " 


X. 

THE    END    OF    CAPTIVITY 


X. 

THE  END  OF  CAPTIVITY 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Stand  ye  in  the  ways,  and  see  and  ask 
for  the  old  paths,  where  is  the  good  way,  and  walk  therein." — 
Jeremiah  vi.  i6. 

This  does  not  mean,  as  is  sometimes  supposed, 
"  stand  up  and  ask  for  the  old  paths,  and  never 
move  from  them,  for  there  is  the  right  wa}'." 
The  true  meaning  is  ver}^  different ;  for  the  words 
are  a  call  to  rise  up  and  stand  in  the  ways  and 
look  about  and  inquire  of  the  old  ways  which  is 
the  right  way  and  then  to  walk  in  it.  Among 
those  old  Avays  our  feet  may  be  standing  in  the 
wrong,  and  we  must  therefore  take  good  heed 
and  find  out  the  right. 

Now  on  the  eve  of  that  break  with  Rome  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  which  we  term  the  Reforma- 
tion, no  more  appropriate  word  could  have  been 
spoken  than  this :  ''  Stand  ye  in  the  ways,  and  see 
and  ask  for  the  old  paths."  Never  in  all  their 
long  history    had  Anglican  Churchmen   greater 


l6o  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

need  for  strength  and  patience.  The  very  foun- 
dations were  endangered,  and  what  could  the 
rio-hteous  do  ?  It  was  a  time  of  well-nigh  univer- 
sal  change.  Yet  by  divine  Providence  those  who 
were  then  leading  our  Church  were  not  revolu- 
tionists ;  they  would  do  nothing  rashly.  They 
justly  conceived  of  their  work  as  the  work  of 
Reformation  only,  and  they  always  seemed  to  hear 
a  summons  bidding  them  find  their  model  in 
purer  and  better  times.  ^Accordingly  they  bent 
all  their  energies  to  the  freeing  of  our  Church 
from  the  unscriptural  and  uncatholic  domination 
of  a  foreign  Bishop. 

In  this  great  work  of  Reformation,  England's 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  ecclesiastical  mat- 
ters curiously  anticipates  America's  Declaration 
of  Independence  in  matters  political.  Whilst 
America  was  subject  to  the  British  Empire,  a  con- 
sciousness of  her  destiny  was  ever  stealing  in 
upon  thoughtful  men.  It  was  one  of  the  wisest 
of  these  who  said,  ''As  soon  as  x\merica  can  take 
care  of  herself,  she  will  do  what  Carthage  did." 

And  yet  from  a  final  separation  from  England, 
the  Colonists  instinctively  turned  away.  They 
still  naturally  looked  upon  England  as  the  ancient 
home  of  their  fathers,  and  thev  regarded  her  laws 


THE   END    OF   CAPTIVITY  l6l 

and  customs  as  their  own  just  inheritance.  Yet 
they  emphatically  denied  that  their  English  kins- 
men had  any  rights  over  them.  They  were  all 
equal,  they  were  all  free.  But  this,  which  none 
deny  now,  was  not  admitted  then ;  and  separation 
inevitably  came.  And  as  it  was  in  the  days  of 
the  foolish  King  Rehoboam,  so  again  it  was  in  the 
days  of  the  foolish  and  incapable  George  III. 
The  king  would  use  force,  but  the  God  of  nations 
interposed ;  "  return  every  man  to  his  house  in 
peace,  for  this  thing  is  from  Me." 

And  now  for  the  parallel.  It  is  indeed  close 
and  exact.  The  great  body  of  the  English  people 
had,  in  the  course  of  the  Norman  period,  learned 
to  love  the  Roman  Church  and  to  wish  her  pros- 
perity. Yet  they  never  thought  of  her  as  having 
any  rights  over  them.  When,  therefore,  that 
Roman  Church,  forgetting  that  she  was  at  best  no 
more  than  a  sister,  began  to  imagine  herself  the 
mother  and  mistress  of  Churches,  to  claim  abso- 
lute power  and  dominion,  and  even  to  attempt  to 
withdraw  liberties  which  the  English  Church  had 
enjoyed  ever  since  apostolic  men  had  taught  her 
the  truth  and  made  her  free ;  when  she  tried  to 
annul  Magna  Charta  itself  (which  declared  that 
the  English    Church    was  anciently   and    forever 


l62  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

free);  when  she  attempted  to  deprive  the  people 
of  England  of  their  inalienable  and  time-honored 
right  of  choosing  their  own  Bishops  and  chief 
pastors,  then  the  action  of  the  American  colonies 
was  anticipated  by  over  two  centuries,  and  the 
English  Church  declared  that,  for  the  future,  she 
would  look  after  her  own  affairs. 

Now  what  is  a  commoner  charge  against  our 
Church  than  that  she  is  a  new  body,  built  on  the 
ruins  of  the  old  Roman  Church  of  England. 
Many  of  the  Bishops  and  clergy  and  a  few  of  the 
educated  laity  of  that  Church  know  better,  but 
the  rank  and  file  are  taught  differently.  And  as 
for  Presbyterians,  Methodists,  Congregationalists, 
and  Baptists,  however  kindly  disposed  toward 
us  they  may  be,  they  would  as  soon  think  of  be- 
coming Roman  Catholics  as  of  ceasing  to  believe 
that  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  a  little  babe  in  swaddling-clothes,  which, 
having  had  Henry  VIII.  as  its  foster-father  and 
Queen  Elizabeth  as  its  nursing  mother,  had  at 
last  grown  up  to  vigorous  life.  This  is  history 
indeed,  if  we  can  call  that  history  compared  with 
which  the  stories  of  Grimm's  goblins  and  Hans 
Andersen's  fairy  tales  are  sober  truth. 

Our  forefathers   would   have  been  startled  by 


THE   END    OF   CAPTIVITY  163 

any  such  view.  They  did  not  see  before  their 
eyes  a  delicate  and  puny  infant  wailing  its  neces- 
sities in  the  ears  of  royal  foster-parents.  What 
they  saw  was  their  own  strong  and  vigorous 
Church,  into  which  they  had  been  born,  and 
Avhich  for  over  one  thousand  years  had  been  in 
sole  possession  of  the  land,  a  Church  which,  older 
than  the  state  itself,  had  done  more  than  all  other 
forces  to  make  England  what  she  was. 

The  Church's  own  Reformation  Prayer  Book 
asserts  this  with  unfaltering  voice.  And  its  testi- 
mony has  this  peculiar  value,  that  it  is  contempo- 
raneous testimony  taken  upon  the  spot.  In  the 
preface  to  that  book,  which  is  attributed  to  Arch- 
bishop Cranmer,  whom  the  Romans  afterward 
burned  as  a  Reformer  in  the  market-place  at 
Oxford,  are  these  words :  "  The  service  in  this 
Church  of  England,  these  many  years,  hath  been 
read  in  Latin  to  the  people,  which  they  under- 
stand not ;  so  that  they  have  heard  with  their 
ears  only." 

Plainly,  in  the  judgment  of  the  reforming  Arch- 
bishop, the  Church  which  proposed  now  to  read 
the  service  in  English  w^as  the  same  Church 
which  had  previously  read  it  in  Latin.  In  his 
mind  there  was  no  break  in  the  continuity  of  the 


l64  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Church's  life  or  organization,  she  was  merely  re- 
forming evil  customs. 

In  the  reign  of  Alfred,  King  of  England  (871- 
901),  the  Church  leased  a  piece  of  property  to  the 
crown  for  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  years. 
A  few  years  ago  the  term  of  the  lease  expired, 
and  on  a  question  arising  as  to  what  body  was  en- 
titled to  the  property,  the  courts  decided  it  be- 
longed of  right  to  the  present  Church  of  England 
as  the  original  owner.  But  this  decision  was,  as 
is  well  known,  a  part  of  a  larger  question.  All 
Church  property  in  England  is  legally  held  upon 
the  principle  that  the  Church  of  England  of  to- 
day is  one  and  the  same  as  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land under  the  Heptarchy  and  all  subsequent 
kings.  The  muniments  of  title  to  all  the  cathe- 
drals, and  to  Westminster  Abbey  itself,  the  most 
national  of  all  the  churches  there,  are  involved  in 
this  legal  presumption.  But  we  have  only  to  see 
how  the  ''  Anglicana  Ecclesia  "  in  Magna  Charta 
is  carefully  distinguished  from  that  "  Sanctse  Ro- 
manae  Ecclesise,"  which  is  also  there  mentioned, 
to  see  that  this  is  no  presumption  merely.  Even 
Bede  speaks  of  the  "  Ecclesia  Anglorum,"  and 
never  is  there  a  hint  that  she  was  ever  anything 
else. 


THE   END    OF   CAPTIVITY  16$ 

It  is  true,  alas,  that  this  national  Church  was 
not  always  free  from  foreign  dictation ;  that  for 
years  she  lay,  as  Samson,  bound,  but  the  bondage 
destroyed  not  her  ancient  character.  Rightly  did 
she  claim  her  freedom.  ''  Our  records,"  said 
Queen  Elizabeth,  "show  that  the  papal  jurisdic- 
tion over  this  realm  was  usurpation."  How  like 
this  reply  to  that  made  by  William  the  Conquer- 
or to  Hildebrand,  more  than  five  hundred  years 
before. 

Think  of  what  the  Popes  were,  and  you  will  see 
not  only  how  needful  this  declaration  of  indepen- 
dence was,  but  that  it  was  made  none  too  soon. 
Men  had  to  look  away  in  horror  and  dismay 
when  they  beheld  all  evil  triumphant  ia  the  per- 
sons of  men  calling  themselves  Vicars  of  Christ. 
It  was  this,  first,  that  set  men  thinking.  When 
such  a  creature  as  the  wretched  Alexander  VI. 
sat  in  the  temple  of  God,  proclaiming  himself 
the  Lord's  anointed,  had  men  been  silent  the 
very  stones  would  have  cried  out  against  their 
silence  and  their  apathy. 

Then  there  were  other  and  infinitely  greater 
causes  at  work.  The  old  social  order  which  had 
prevailed  throughout  Western  Europe  was  pass- 
ing away.     The  spell  of  the  past — the   spell  of 


l66  LECTURES    OX   CHURCH    HISTORY 

custom  and  tradition — which  had  enchained  the 
minds  of  men,  was  roughly  broken,  and  an  era  of 
free  thought  had  dawned. 

Great  physical  changes,  too,  were  also  contrib- 
uting largely  to  that  spirit  of  inquiry  and  that 
search  for  truth  which  was  behind  the  Reforma- 
tion movement.  The  world  was,  in  fact,  passing 
through  wonderful  changes.  Its  physical  bounds 
had  been  suddenlv  enlarged.  Portuguese  mari- 
ners had  sailed  around  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 
Columbus  had  crossed  the  ocean  in  search  of  a 
nearer  wav  to  the  Asiatic  main,  and  had  died  pro- 
fessing his  belief  that  he  had  found  it.  Sebastian 
Cabot,  starting  from  Bristol,  had  threaded  his 
way  among  the  icebergs  of  Labrador,  and  thence 
sailed  southward  along  the  North  American 
coast  till  he  saw  the  shores  of  Florida. 

The  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
an  answer  to  the  demands  of  the  age.  Firmly, 
but  gently,  and  in  canonical  order,  the  Anglican 
Church  reasserted  her  independence  and  en- 
shrined for  all  time  a  main  principle  of  the  Refor- 
mation in  these  words:  "The  Bishop  of  Rome 
hath  no  greater  jurisdiction  in  this  realm  of  Eng- 
land than  any  other  foreign  Bishop." 

Reformation  under  these  conditions  was  as  nat- 


THE   END   OF   CAPTIVITY  1 6/ 

ural  as  that  day  should  follow  night.  But  we 
may  be  told  that  we  have  not  mentioned  the 
divorce  of  Henry  VIII.  To  assign  that  miserable 
and  protracted  lawsuit  as  a  cause  of  the  Refor- 
mation, is  very  much  like  saying  that  the  loss  of 
the  fifth  wheel  disables  the  coach.  But  many  of 
us  have  travelled  in  four-wheeled  coaches  in  per- 
fect safety.  Some  years  ago  it  is  said  the  Queen 
of  England  arrived  at  Dover,  and  not  being  met 
with  the  usual  royal  salute  she  asked  the  com- 
mander of  the  port  why  the  salute  was  omitted, 
who  at  once  replied,  ''  Please  your  Majesty  there 
are  several  reasons,  but  the  first  is  we  have  no 
guns."  The  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century 
was  a  European  matter.  A  little  stone  had  been 
cut  out  of  the  mountain,  without  hands,  which  was 
destined  to  break  the  great  image  of  folly  and 
superstition  which  had  been  silently  set  up  in 
Christendom.  With  the  breaking  of  that  image 
England  was  well  content.  She  had  no  war  but 
with  error.  Her  Reformers  sought  only  the  old 
and  good  way  that  they  might  walk  therein. 

With  Henry  VIII.,  individually,  we  have  noth- 
ing to  do.  He  was  no  Bishop  of  the  Church, 
nor  was  he  a  good  man.  Nor  was  he  even  a 
Reformer  at  all.     He  was  a  supporter  of   most 


l68  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  the  mediasval  doctrines,  and  punished  dissent 
from  them  with  the  sword.  By  his  unprincipled 
treatment  of  the  Church  and  his  shameless  rob- 
ber}^ of  her  funds,  he  inflicted  untold  injury  upon 
her.  Yet  he  could  not  stem  the  resistless  tide, 
and  during  his  reign  the  Reformation  was  in  the 
main  accomplished.  The  Scriptures  had  been 
given  to  the  people  in  their  own  tongue,  a 
Prayer  Book  in  English  begun,  and  the  return 
to  primitive  and  apostolic  doctrines  inaugurated. 
But  it  was  in  its  conservative  character  that 
the  Anglican  Reformation  differed  so  widely  from 
that  of  Europe  generall}^  There,  not  reforma- 
tion but  revolution  was  to  be  seen.  Let  us  never 
fail  to  realize  that  here  was  the  vital  difference 
between  the  reform  in  England,  and  elsewhere. 
During  the  French  Revolution  the  king,  looking 
out  on  the  mob  from  the  Tuileries  said  :  "  This 
is  riot,"  the  reply  Avas  :  "  Sire,  it  is  revolution." 
When  the  smoke  of  battle  rolled  away  in  the  re- 
ligious warfare  of  the  sixteenth  century  through- 
out Germany  and  Switzerland,  and  elsewhere 
on  the  continent  of  Europe,  a  new  Church  had 
arisen,  a  Church  without  Bishops  and  without 
a  past.  A  new  thing  had  appeared  under  the 
sun. 


THE   END    OF   CAPTIVITY  169 

In  England,  however,  the  old  Church  still  lived. 
And  she  to-da}^,  both  in  England  and  America, 
looks  back  with  deep  thankfulness  over  the  ages, 
and  sees  no  break  in  her  continuity  from  first  to 
last. 

In  Baltimore,  of  all  the  cities  in  America,  the 
clergy  and  people  of  the  American  Church  need 
to  be  rooted  and  grounded  in  the  history  of  their 
Church.  For  here,  more  than  elsewhere,  do  they 
hear  insidious  suggestions  against  her.  "  'Tis  a 
trembling  shadow,  whilst  the  Church  of  Rome  is 
the  solid  rock."  Remember  how  Tennyson  puts 
this  sentiment  into  the  mouth  of  Cardinal  Pole  as 
he  addresses  Lord  Paget : 

"  Tremble,  my  Lord, 
The  Church  on  Peter's  rock  ?     Never  ! 

I  have  seen 
A  pine  in  Italy  that  cast  its  shadow 
Athwart  a  cataract  ;  firm  stood  the  pine. 
The  cataract  shook  the  shadow.     To  my  mind 
The  cataract  typed  the  headlong  plunge  and  fall 
Of  heresy  to  the  pit ;  the  pine  was  Rome. 

You  see,  my  Lord, 
It  was  the  shadow  of  the  Church  that  trembled ; 
Your  Church  was  but  the  shadow  of  a  Church, 

Wanting-  the  papal  mitre." 
—  (Jiicen  Mary,  Act  iii.,  Sc.  iv. 


I/O  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

This  is  no  poet's  language  merel}'.  It  is,  ac- 
cording to  some,  only  the  sober  teaching  of  his- 
tory. And  are  the  clergy  of  this  American 
Church  to  be  silent  and  let  this  pass  unchal- 
lenged ?  Are  they  to  be  as  dumb  dogs  ?  Are  they 
to  be  hearers  only,  may  they  never  reply  ?  Are 
they  to  be  as  sentries  posted  on  the  walls  of  forti- 
fied towns,  who  seeing  the  enemy  coming  to  at- 
tack, while  all  are  asleep  trusting  to  their  watch- 
fulness and  care,  yet  utter  no  sound  and  give 
no  warning?  Perish  the  thought.  We  attack 
none,  but  we  claim  the  liberty  of  self-defence. 
We  dare  not  accept  any  gagged  responsibility. 
Whether  they  will  hear  or  whether  they  will 
forbear,  we  must  preach  the  Gospel ;  yea,  woe  is 
unto  us  if  we  preach  not  the  Gospel. 

There  is  little  to  encourage  us  to  keep  silent, 
even  if  we  would,  as  we  contemplate  the  actual 
working  of  the  Anglican  and  Roman  Churches. 
By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  Let  Rome 
look  to  her  own  house  and  set  that  in  order. 
Italy  has  deprived  the  Pope  of  his  temporal 
power.  Spain  has  come  down  in  the  Avorld. 
Austria  is  weak.  France  is  sneering  at  religion 
and  has  legalized  divorce.  Mexico  and  the  South 
American  republics  are  but  thinly  disguised  bar- 


THE   END    OF   CAPTIVITY  I/I 

barisms.  Yet  these  are  Roman  Catholic  powers. 
Perhaps  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  what 
they  are.  Yet  God  does  say,  ''  Righteousness  ex- 
alteth  a  nation,"  and  we  mark  with  satisfaction 
and  thankfulness  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  nations, 
taught  by  our  own  beloved  Mother,  stand  in  the 
van  of  all  commercial  activity,  of  all  intellectual 
progress,  and  of  all  religious  thought. 


XI. 
THE    RESTORATION 


XI. 
THE    RESTORATION 

"This  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  man^ellous  in  our  eyes." 
— PSAL.M  cxviii.  23. 

Henry  VIII.  left  behind  him  three  children 
— Edward,  Mary,  and  Elizabeth.  And  if  one  were 
to  describe  these  children  by  terms  with  which 
we  are  now  familiar,  we  should  say  that  the  first 
was  a  Puritan,  the  second  a  Roman  Catholic,  and 
the  third  an  Anglican.  It  is  certainly  not  a  little 
remarkable  that  in  one  family  there  should  have 
been  such  divisions,  and  it  is  still  more  remark- 
able that  all  three  should  in  turn  have  come  to 
the  throne  of  England,  and  from  that  elevated 
position  have  given  to  the  world  a  practical  il- 
lustration of  the  working  and  characteristics  of 
the  three  systems  of  religion— Puritanism,  Roman 
Catholicism,  and  Anglicanism  that  is  pure  Catho- 
licism. In  this  respect  the  family  of  Henry  VIII. 
affords  us  one  of  the  most  striking  object-lessons 


176  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

which   can  be  found  in  the  whole  field  of  eccle- 
siastical history. 

Prince  Edward  was  of  the  stuff  of  which  Puri- 
tans are  made.  His  reign  has  been  called  the  seven 
years'  reign  of  an  infant,  for  he  was  but  sixteen 
years  old  when  he  died  ;  but  he  had  for  an  infant 
a  remarkably  strong  will.  Of  the  Tudor  race,  he 
knew  well  what  he  wanted,  and  was  set  to  accom- 
plish it.  He  had  no  love  for  the  Church  nor  ap- 
preciation of  her  apostolic  character,  and  his  one 
aim  seemed  to  be  to  get  as  near  as  possible  to  the 
new  communities  founded  by  the  German  and 
Swiss  Reformers.  And  had  his  reign  continued, 
it  is  easy  to  conjecture  w^hat  would  have  befallen 
the  old  national  Church  of  England.  As  it  was, 
the  iconoclasm  of  the  true  Puritans  was  antici- 
pated. For  the  first  time  in  England,  men  calling 
themselves  Christians  ''  broke  down  all  the  carved 
work  thereof  with  axes  and  hammers,  and  defiled 
the  dwelling-places  of  the  Most  High."  There 
were  men  who  seemed  to  have  a  perfect  horror 
of  worshipping  God  "  in  the  beauty  of  holiness." 
The  one  thing  in  connection  with  the  Church 
they  had  no  antipathy  to,  was  her  property.  But 
the  robber  of  the  Church  is  the  robber  of  God, 
and  the  Lord  is  mindful  of  His  own. 


THE   RESTORATION  I77 

"  They  tell  us  that  the  Lord  of  Hosts  will  not  avenge  His  own ; 
They  tell  us  that  He  careth  not  for  temples  overthrown  ; 
Go  look  through  England's  thousand  vales,  and  show  me,  he 

that  may, 
The  abbey  lands  that  have  not  wrought  their  owner's  swift 

decay." 

The  reig-n  of  this  Puritan  boy  came  to  an  end 
on  July  6,  1553.  But  young  as  he  was,  he  had 
the  spirit  of  his  father  before  him  and  of  every 
English  king  who  had  struggled  for  freedom 
against  foreign  interference.  His  last  prayer  de- 
serves to  be  remembered  for  its  sublime  patriot- 
ism :  "  O  Lord  God,  defend  this  realm  from  Pa- 
pistry and  maintain  Thy  true  religion."  It  re- 
minds us  of  the  prayer  of  Oswald,  the  sainted 
King  of  Northumbria,  on  behalf  of  his  Christian 
subjects,  as  he  fell  fighting  against  the  heathen 
King  of  the  Mercians,  "  Lord  have  mercy  on  their 
souls  !  " 

Mary,  whose  reign  came  next,  was  the  Roman 
Catholic  of  the  family.  The  daughter  of  the  dis-- 
carded  Catherine  of  Aragon,  she  owed  her  zeal 
for  the  unreformed  religion  to  her  Spanish  moth- 
er's training.  Oh,  mothers,  what  a  power  for 
good  or  evil  is  yours !  It  was  a  true  answer 
which,  in  reply   to   the  question,    what   was   the 


178  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

great  want  of  the  French  nation,  said,  ''  Moth- 
ers." Give  us  earnest,  conscientious,  and  relig- 
ious mothers,  and  the  future  of  any  nation  is  as- 
sured. 

Mary's  mother  had  made  her  a  faithful  disciple 
of  the  Italian  Bishop.  As  soon  as  she  became 
queen,  she  set  herself  to  restore  all  the  mediaeval 
practices  which  had  been  abandoned.  Step  by 
step  she  proceeded  to  undo  all  that  her  father  or 
brother  had  done.  The  English  Prayer  Book 
was  proscribed,  the  English  Bible  was  banished  ; 
old  statutes  against  heresy  were  brought  forward 
and  solemnly  promulgated  afresh,  and  she  set 
definitely  before  her,  as  a  religious  duty,  to  do 
what  no  English  sovereign  before  her  had  ever  at- 
tempted save  the  infamous  John,  she  would  force 
her  people  into  the  house  of  bondage.  By  the  be- 
ginning of  1555,  the  arena  was  cleared  and  that 
frightful  tragedy  was  begun  in  which  an  Archbish- 
op, four  Bishops,  twenty-one  clergymen,  fifty-five 
women,  four  children,  and  two  hundred  and  three 
other  persons  were  to  be  burned  at  the  stake. 

We  are  not  about  to  harrow  your  feelings  with 
any  minute  description  of  those  terrible  outrages. 
Our  work  is  not  to  show  the  folly  of  Roman  per- 
secution, it  is  the  pleasanter  duty  of  showing  the 


THE   RESTORATION  1 79 

wisdom  of  Anglican  toleration.  That  particular 
persecution,  indeed,  inflicted  on  Rome  such  irre- 
parable injury  that  she  has  since  again  and  again 
vainly  tried  to  escape  the  responsibility  for  it. 
And  if  we  are  to  judge  from  the  loud  praises 
(with  which  all  Marylanders  are  familiar)  which 
are  now  lavished  upon  the  spirit  of  toleration 
from  unexpected  quarters,  we  may  assume  that 
the  error  has  been  seen,  and  that  the  Anglican 
method  has  been  generally  recognized  as  the 
more  excellent  way. 

Mary  herself  foresaw  it,  and  weakened  by  ill- 
health  and  realizing  the  failure  of  all  her  cherished 
plans,  died  broken-hearted  after  a  short  reign  of 
five  -^^ears.  In  her  life  and  reign  men  saw,  or 
thought  they  saw,  the  good  and  evil  of  the  Roman 
system,  its  virtues  and  its  defects,  and  they  con- 
demned it.  She  had  made  a  strong  and  deter- 
mined effort  to  graft  it  upon  English  Christianity 
but  without  success.  On  November  17,  1558, 
Mary  breathed  her  last,  and  her  sister  Eliza- 
beth, almost  without  opposition,  "  reigned  in  her 
stead." 

The  third  and  last  of  Henry's  children  now  sat 
upon  the  throne.  In  Elizabeth's  reign  men  were 
to  see  the  practical  working  of  the  true  Anglican 


l80  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Catholicism,  which  is  the  unifying  power  of  all 
Anglo-Saxon  Christendom  to  this  very  day. 

In  Hatfield  Park  a  tree  is  still  pointed  out 
where  Elizabeth  was  sitting  when  she  received 
the  news  of  her  peaceable  accession  to  the  throne. 
At  once  she  fell  on  her  knees,  and  drawing  a  long 
deep  breath,  exclaimed,  "  It  is  the  Lord's  doing, 
and  it  is  marvellous  in  our  eyes."  Just  as  the 
coins  of  the  United  States  now  bear  the  words 
''  In  God  we  trust,"  so  to  the  last  of  her  reign 
those  words  were  stamped  upon  the  golden  coin- 
age of  the  queen. 

And  there  was  a  singular  appropriateness  in 
these  words.  They  were  spoken  originally  with 
reference  to  a  proverb.  "  The  same  stone  which 
the  builders  refused  is  become  the  head  of  the 
corner."  We  have  no  means  of  knowing  whether 
or  not  they  refer  to  any  historical  event,  but 
whatever  the  origin  of  the  proverb,  as  commonly 
used,  it  referred  to  a  people  rejected  and  cast 
away. 

As  the  Princess  Elizabeth  she  had  been  neg- 
lected, her  birth  had  once  been  declared  illegiti- 
mate, but  she  was  now  restored.  The  stone 
which  the  builders  rejected  had  truly  become 
the    headstone    in   the   corner.     ''  This    was   the 


THE   RESTORATION  l8l 

Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  marvellous  in  our  eyes." 
We  remember  again  God's  words :  "  This  thing 
is  from  Me !  "  Plainly  this  was  one  of  God's 
providences.  To  Him  who  is  King  of  Kings  and 
Lord  of  Lords,  v/ ho  putteth  down  one  and  setteth 
up  another,  does  the  Church  owe  it  that,  in  the 
most  critical  period  of  all  her  long  history  Eliza- 
beth arose  as  a  mother  in  Israel.  The  queen 
herself  felt  that  her  preservation  from  the  many 
perils  which  had  threatened  her  life  was  due  to 
the  direct  interposition  of  God. 

Elizabeth's  accession  was  the  signal  for  the 
quenching  of  the  fires  of  persecution.  She  put 
none  to  death  for  religious  convictions.  She  was 
the  type  of  a  true  Anglican  Churchwoman.  If, 
later  in  her  reign,  there  were  some  that  died  for 
their  opinions,  it  was  not  because  those  opinions 
were  religious,  but  because  they  were  political ; 
not  because  they  were  regarded  as  dangerous  to 
the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  nation,  but  because 
they  threatened  destruction  to  the  state.  This 
is  the  glory  of  Elizabeth.  Throughout  her  long 
reign,  save  a  few  Anabaptists  who  seemed  to 
menace  the  social  order,  no  heretic  was  sent  "  to 
the  fire." 

And    her   Anglican   policy   of    toleration    met 


1 82  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

with  its  reward.  Gradually  the  mediseval  prac- 
tices of  Mary's  reign  fell  into  disuse,  and  the  ce- 
remonial of  the  later  years  of  Henry  became  the 
standard  of  ritual  and  of  practice.  Slowly  great 
changes  were  taking  place,  and  habits  were  be- 
coming crystallized.  But  so  wisely  did  she  act, 
that  the  mass  of  the  nation  were  not  conscious 
that  they  were  making  an  epoch  in  Anglican 
Church  history. 

The  old  Rectors,  with  few  exceptions,  remained 
in  their  parishes  and  ministered  as  of  old.  The 
new  Prayer  Book  was  for  the  most  part  an  Eng- 
lish rendering  of  the  old  service — yet  English 
and  not  Roman.  Even  those  who  sighed  for  the 
leeks  and  garlic  of  Egypt  attended  the  public 
services  and  saw  but  little  with  which  to  find 
fault.  Sometimes,  where  feeling  ran  high,  dif- 
ficulties were  removed  by  compromise.  The 
priest  would  celebrate  mass  at  his  house  for  the 
more  conservative  members  of  his  flock,  whilst  to 
the  others  he  would  administer  the  Communion 
in  church  according  to  the  Reformed  service. 
Sometimes  all  knelt  together  at  the  same  altar- 
rail,  some  to  receive  wafers  previously  consecrat- 
ed after  the  old  usage,  others  to  receive  wafers 
consecrated  in  church  after  the  new.     In  many 


THE    RESTORATION  I  83 

parishes  in  the  North  no  change  at  all  was  made. 
Such  a  state  of  things  seems  to  us  little  better 
than  chaos.     But  chaos  is  better  than  war. 

Yet  the  gains  were  substantial  and  permanent. 
All  submission  to  Rome  was  at  an  end.  The  re- 
formed Book  of  Common  Prayer  was  now  the 
Prayer  Book  of  the  land.  The  Sacraments  were 
restored  to  their  proper  place.  The  Scriptures 
were  read  in  the  language  of  the  people.  The 
Bishoprics  were  filled  with  men  who  had  been 
rightly  consecrated,  and  not  for  many  a  long  day 
was  there  a  breath  of  suggestion  that  there  was 
a  flaw  anywhere.  Under  Matthew  Parker,  the 
new  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  England  seemed, 
at  the  close  of  1559,  to  be  quietly  settling  down 
to  enjoy  peace.  This  peace,  however,  was  to  be 
rudely  broken.  As  a  Bishop  of  Rome  was  respon- 
sible for  the  lamentable  schism  between  the  Greek 
and  Roman  communions,  so  another  Bishop  of 
Rome  was  to  be  the  cause  of  a  schism,  almost 
as  disastrous,  betw^een  the  Roman  and  Anglican 
communions;  but  not  before  striking  testimony 
had  been  given  to  the  uncalled-for  and  entirely 
gratuitous  nature  of  his  interference  in  the  affairs 
of  our  national  Church. 

It  was,  strange  to  tell,  reserved,  in  the  provi- 


1 84  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

dence  of  God,  for  a  Bishop  of  Rome  to  declare 
the  validity  of  Anglican  orders,  and  to  assert  his 
belief  that  the  Anglican  Church  had  all  things  es- 
sential to  her  Catholicity.  Indeed  the  worthy 
Bishop,  Pius  IV.  (who  did  this),  might  have  said 
to  English  Churchmen,  "  What  more  could  I  have 
done  for  you  than  I  have  done?"  To  whom 
they  might  have  graciously  replied,  "  Nothing, 
absolutely  nothing.  We  thank  you  for  your 
words  of  approval  and  the  evidence  of  3'our  good- 
will. We  may  not,  however,  accept  your  offered 
leadership,  for,  under  Christ,  we  obey  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  of  whom  one  of  your 
own  predecessors  has  spoken  as  '  the  Pope  of 
another  world.'  " 

The  circumstances  are  these:  In  1560  Pius 
IV.  made  overtures  to  Elizabeth  for  a  reconcilia- 
tion ;  and  the  overtures  he  made  practically  con- 
cede the  Anglican  position  as  right.  He  under- 
took to  give  his  approval  of  all  that  had  been 
done  during  the  Reformation  period,  provided 
his  authority  Avere  recognized.  So  important  is 
this  evidence  that  I  give  you  the  very  Avords  as 
they  occur  in  Butler's  ''  Historical  Memoirs  of 
the  Catholics,"  published  in  London,  1822.  It  is 
especially   valuable    as   coming   from   a    Roman 


THE   RESTORATION  1 85 

Catholic,  though  the  truth  of  the  statement  is  not 
called  into  question. 

'^  In  May,  1560,  Pius  IV."  (says  Butler)  ''sent 
Vincentio  Parpalio  to  the  queen  with  a  letter, 
most  earnestly  but  respectfully  entreating  her  to 
return  to  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  Parpalio 
was  instructed  to  offer  to  the  queen  that  the 
Pope  would  annul  the  sentence  of  Clement,  his 
predecessor,  against  her  mother's  marriage,  settle 
the  Liturgy  by  his  authority,  and  grant  to  the 
English  the  use  of  the  Sacraments  in  both  kinds. 
Parpalio  reached  Brussels,  and  from  that  place 
he  acquainted  the  English  ministry  with  the  ob- 
ject of  his  mission,  and  proceeded  to  Calais.  The 
propriety  of  admitting  him  was  debated  in  the 
Royal  Council  and  determined  in  the  negative." 

Doubtless  the  queen  and  her  Council  had  be- 
fore their  eyes  the  first  clause  of  Magna  Charta  : 
"  The  Church  of  England  shall  be  free  and  hold 
her  rights  entire  and  her  liberties  inviolate." 

Ten  years  rolled  away,  and  another  effort  was 
made,  this  time  by  Pius  V.,  successor  of  Pius  IV. 
Paul  IV.  had  tried  threats.  Pius  IV.  had  sought 
the  same  end  by  persuasion.  Then  came  Pius 
v.,  to  whose  fiery  faith  every  means  of  warfare 
seemed  hallowed   by   the  sanctity  of   his  cause. 


I86  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

He  sent  forth,  in  the  year  1570,  his  spiritual 
thunders.  Excommunication  was  the  dread  sen- 
tence lighting  upon  all  who  would  not  withdraw 
from  their  parish  churches.  A  few,  a  very  few, 
obeyed  his  bidding,  and  the  second  Italian  mis- 
sion in  England  dates  from  this  act  and  time. 
But  a  blight  seems  to  have  been  always  upon  it ; 
it  has  never  prospered.  Notwithstanding  the 
terribly  stagnant  period  of  the  Georges,  when 
the  national  Church,  settled  upon  her  lees,  was 
doing  nothing,  it  grew  not.  Even  to-day  it  num- 
bers less  than  a  million,  though  founded  more  than 
three  centuries  ago.  It  is  but  a  feeble  schism  ; 
the  smallest  and  youngest  aspirant  to  spiritual 
power  in  England. 

After  Pius  came  Sixtus  V.,  who,  seeing  that 
threats,  persuasion,  and  spiritual  censure  had  all 
alike  failed,  tried  arms.  Spain  at  that  time  was  mis- 
tress of  the  seas  and  the  first  power  of  the  world. 
To  Philip  of  Spain  Sixtus  opened  the  Papal  treas- 
ury, if  he  would  invade  the  heretic  realm.  Philip 
needed  no  pressing.  With  vast  possessions  in 
both  worlds,  he  longed  to  extend  them.  Eng- 
land was  to  him  Naboth's  vineyard.  The  Pope's 
offer  was  as  cold  spring  water  to  a  thirsty  man. 
He   eagerly   seized   it.      Three    hundred   priests 


THE   RESTORATION  1 8/ 

under  the  Jesuit  Father  Allen  were  sent  into 
England  to  spread  dissatisfaction  and  to  under- 
mine the  government,  while  Spain  prepared  the 
mightiest  navy  ever  seen.  At  last  all  was  ready. 
On  July  9,  1588,  the  sails  of  the  Spanish  Armada 
appeared  off  the  Lizard,  and  the  beacons  flared 
out  their  alarm  all  along  the  coast, 

"  Till  Skiddaw  saw  the  fire  that  burned 
On  Gaunt's  embattled  pile, 
And  the  red  glare  on  Skiddaw  roused 
The  burghers  of  Carlisle." 

It  was  a  mighty  array.  The  stoutest  hearts 
might  have  quaked  at  the  sight.  It  was  in  its 
overwhelming  greatness  like  the  host  of  Sen- 
nacherib of  which  Byron  sings  : 

"  The  Assyrian  came  down  like  the  wolf  on  the  fold, 
And  his  cohorts  were  gleaming  in  purple  and  gold, 
And  the  sheen  of  their  spears  was  like  stars  on  the  sea 
When  the  blue  waves  roll  nightly  in  deep  Galilee." 

Yet  vast  as  was  the  host,  the  eneni}^  did  not  trust 
in  it  alone.  The  three  hundred  emissaries  had 
been  sowing  disaffection  broadcast.  How  could 
success  be  doubtful?  There  was  overwhelming 
strength,  a  disaffected  people  eagerly  watching 
for  them,  and  the  Papal  blessing  as  well! 


l88  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

But  the  Queen's  toleration  had  borne  its  fruits. 
Now  was  to  be  seen  the  wisdom  of  that  policy. 
Englishmen,  however  much  they  might  love  the 
old  ritual,  had  no  mind  to  go  into  bondage.  The 
Jesuit  leader  had  assured  the  King  of  Spain  that 
the  bulk  of  the  Nation  would  rise  as  soon  as 
a  strong  Spanish  force  was  landed  on  English 
ground.  He  even  gave  the  names  of  those  who 
would  lead.  The  Earls  of  Arundel,  Northum- 
berland, Worcester,  Cumberland,  Oxford,  and 
Southampton  were  among  these.  Yet  observe 
w^hat  followed.  In  the  presence  of  the  stranger 
religious  strife  was  silent.  Of  the  nobles  and 
squires  whose  tenants  were  to  muster  under  the 
flag  of  the  invader,  not  one  proved  a  traitor;  and 
in  the  defence  against  the  Armada  the  vessels  of 
Cumberland,  Oxford,  and  Northumberland  fought 
side  by  side  with  those  of  Drake  and  Howard. 
Mark,  again,  we  say,  the  wisdom  of  the  Anglican 
policy.  As  the  result  of  it,  the  great  Armada  was 
scattered.  The  Lord  fought  for  England  as  in 
the  times  gone  by  He  had  fought  for  Israel, 
when  they  saw  the  Egyptians  dead  upon  the  sea- 
shore. The  rugged  coasts  of  Scotland  and  Ire- 
land were  covered  with  wrecks.  On  the  strand 
near   Sligo,  an  English   captain   counted   eleven 


THE   RESTORATION  189 

hundred  corpses  which  had  been  cast  up  by  the 
sea.  Poor  men !  The  Papal  blessing-  had  not 
helped  them  ! 

England  acknowledged  her  debt  to  God.  His 
was  the  victory,  not  theirs. 

"  The  might  of  the  Gentiles,  unsmote  by  the  sword, 
Had  melted  like  snow  in  the  glance  of  the  Lord." 

On  the  medal  that  commemorated  the  triumph, 
the  words  were  engraved  ''  The  Lord  sent  His 
word  and  scattered  them."  With  the  fall  of  the 
Armada,  Spanish  supremacy  vanished  utterly 
away.  Ambition  and  the  Papal  blessing  thus 
proved  Spain's  ruin.  One  century  later,  and 
Spain  was  stripped  of  the  bulk  of  the  Nether- 
lands; another,  and  her  possessions  in  Italy  had 
vanished  ;  3^et  a  third,  and  her  dominions  in  the 
New  World  w^ere  taken  away.  Her  fall  has  been 
clearly  traced  to  the  loss  of  her  maritime  ascen- 
dency at  that  overwhelming  catastrophe  in  the 
wreck  of  the  grand  Armada,  when  her  power  was 
broken,  her  influence  destroyed,  and  her  prestige 
forever  taken  away. 

England,  on  the  contrary,  from  that  day  for- 
w^ard  took  the  first  place.  "  God  putteth  down 
one  and   setteth  up  another."     He  evidenth'  ex- 


I90  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

alted  the  nation  whose  Church  had  kept  ''  the 
faith  once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints,"  and 
which  had  put  their  trust  in  His  Word  and  Sac- 
raments. And  mightily  has  He  since  blessed  that 
Church.  In  His  own  providence  He  has  made 
her  the  teacher  of  the  most  progressive  nations 
of  the  modern  world.  He  has  made  it  possible 
for  her  rightly  to  claim  as  her  heritage,  to  be 
used  for  Him,  the  better  part  of  this  New  World, 
which  was  even  then  looming  up  wondrous  large 
before  the  eyes  of  men. 

Never  since  the  sixteenth  century  has  the  Latin 
Church  been  able  to  recommend  herself  to  the 
more  intellectual  and  cultured  classes.  In  lands 
where  she  holds  sway  the  upper  classes  have  for 
the  most  part  relapsed  into  dreary  scepticism. 
Her  power  is  almost  entirely  confined  to  the  illit- 
erate. As  education  spreads  she  will  lose  ground 
even  more  rapidly  ;  while  the  stream  which 
makes  for  true  Catholicism  will  flow  on  more 
steadily  and  more  widely.  Converts  will  come  in 
greater  numbers.  Already  do  they  come  in  not 
inconsiderably.  Over  seven  hundred  adult  Ro- 
man Catholics  has  the  present  Bishop  of  Iowa 
received  with  his  own  hand  into  our  Church 
since  he  has  been  Bishop,  and  all  his  Episcopal 


THE   RESTORATION  I9I 

brethren    around    him    have    similar   reports   to 
make. 

Let  us  trust  God  to  deal  wisely  with  His  peo- 
ple. Men  saw  ultra  -  Protestantism  in  Edward, 
and  they  liked  it  not ;  again  they  saw  ultra-mon- 
tanism  in  Mary,  and  they  liked  it  no  better.  But 
they  rejoiced  when  they  saw  the  old  faith  in  Eliz- 
abeth free  from  Papal  superstition  and  Puritan 
innovation. 

Elizabeth's  work  was  great  indeed.  What 
Wolsey  had  desired  to  see  and  Henry  had  but 
dreamed  of,  she  accomplished.  But  the  princi- 
ple of  her  action  was  the  true  Anglican  principle 
of  respecting  the  rights  and  consciences  of  others. 
She  remembered  that  the  weapons  of  spiritual 
warfare  are  not  carnal.  The  secular  sword  she 
never  used  to  punish  religious  error.  To  the 
Great  Judge  of  All,  men  were  responsible  for 
their  spiritual  life.  She  was  a  civil  governor; 
and  if  men  would  dwell  in  peace  and  quietness  in 
her  realm,  obeying  the  secular  laws  without  of- 
fence, they  were  never  molested  by  her.  By  that 
policy  she  welded  together  into  one  harmonious 
whole,  a  nation  which^  had  been  as  divided  in 
religious  sentiment  as  her  own  father's  family. 
When  Puritanism  failed  and   Roman  Catholicism 


192  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

was  found  wanting,  in  that  very  field  and  on  that 
very  stage  she  had  shown  the  power  of  the  Angli- 
can Church. 

Our  debt  to  her  is  great.  At  times  she  herself 
must  have  been  amazed  at  the  success  of  her 
chansres.  But  the  cause  was  of  God ;  and  when 
she  came  to  die,  she  might  well  have  recalled 
those  words  spoken  under  the  old  tree  in  Hatfield 
many  years  before,  and  engraved  on  her  golden 
coins,  as  abundantly  made  good  to  her : 

"  This  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  marvellous 
in  our  eyes." 


XII. 
THE   NAG'S   HEAD   FABLE 


XII. 
THE  NAG'S  HEAD  FABLE 

AN  APOCRYPHAL   STORY 

"  The  elders  which  are  among  you  I  exhort,  who  am  also  an 
elder." — i  Peter  v  i. 

In  the  first  four  verses  of  this  chapter  we  find 
exhortations  addressed  to  the  official  heads  and 
leaders  of  the  Church.  Beginning  with  the  fifth 
verse  we  have  exhortations  to  the  younger  and 
subordinate  members  of  the  ministry,  but  the 
four  opening  verses  are  strictly  an  address  to  the 
older  members.  There  the  highest  authorities  of 
the  Church  are  exhorted  to  the  discharge  of  their 
own  special  duties. 

Now  these  words  have  a  great  historical  inter- 
est to  every  true  Churchman,  for  they  were  the 
text  of  a  sermon  preached  at  a  very  great  crisis 
in  the  history  of  our  Church.  It  was  when  Mat- 
thew Parker  was  consecrated  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury that  the  Bishop  of  Chichester,  having 
chosen  these  words  for  his  text,  preached,  as  the 


196  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Register  at  Lambeth  tells  us,  "  not  inelegantly." 
What  made  this  consecration  a  great  crisis,  a 
very  turning-point,  in  the  history  of  our  Church,  a 
simple  illustration  will  readily  help  us  to  see.  We 
are  all  familiar  with  the  appearance  which  North 
and  South  America  present  on  the  atlas.  We 
see  the  northern  continent  tapering  away  toward 
the  south,  until  there  is  but  a  slender  band  con- 
necting it  with  the  southern  continent.  And  on 
the  other  hand,  beginning  with  that  same  slen- 
der band,  the  southern  continent  opens  out  and 
spreads  until  it  becomes  a  vast  continent  watered 
by  the  mightiest  of  rivers,  and  covered  with  the 
densest  of  forests.  So  slender  is  this  band — this 
isthmus,  which  in  reality  makes  these  two  conti- 
nents one — that  many  attempts  have  been  made 
to  cut  it  through  and  let  the  waters  of  the  Atlan- 
tic and  Pacific  meet  together ;  but  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time  every  such  attempt  has  been  a  disas- 
trous failure,  bringing  nothing  but  confusion  and 
trouble  upon  those  who  have  attempted  it,  dis- 
crediting them  before  the  eyes  of  all  the  world, 
indeed  ruining  and  disgracing  them. 

Now  in  a  similar  way  the  Episcopate  of  the 
Anglican  Communion,  before  and  after  the  Refor- 
mation, maybe  likened  to  the  configui-ation  of  the 


THE   NAGS   HEAD   FABLE  197 

land  in  the  Western  world.  Before  the  Refor- 
mation that  Episcopate  was  a  mighty  body ;  after 
the  Reformation  it  again  became,  as  it  is  to-day, 
a  mighty  body  also.  But  at  the  beginning  of 
Elizabeth's  reign,  in  the  midst  of  the  Reformation 
period,  it  had  its  isthmus,  its  narrow  connecting 
band,  so  slender  that  some  have  attempted  to  cut 
it  through,  nay,  to  assert  that  it  was  cut  through, 
and  that  the  river  of  time  flowed  between.  But 
as  it  was  with  those  who  attempted  to  pierce  the 
material  isthmus,  so  was  it  here.  Only  utter  con- 
fusion has  awaited  them  and  they  have  retired 
discomfited,  confessing  that  they  had  undertaken 
more  than  they  could  perform  ;  that  they  had 
asserted  more  than  they  could  prove. 

Let  us  see  if  these  things  are  not  so.  When 
Queen  Mary's  death  occurred,  a  plague  was  rag- 
ing in  England  which  was  in  truth  no  respecter 
of  persons.  It  entered  with  equal  impartiality 
the  Bishop's  palace  and  the  cottage  of  the  peas- 
ant. It  struck  down  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bur}^  who  stood  then,  as  he  stands  now,  next  in 
rank  to  the  princes  of  the  blood  royal — 

"  Chief  prelate  of  our  Church,  Archbishop,  first 
In  council,  second  person  in  the  realm." 


198  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

It  spared  not  the  Bishops,  and  this  at  a  time 
when,  owing  to  the  changes  taking  place,  some 
had  been  deprived  of  their  bishoprics  or  had  vol- 
untarily resigned  them.  For  awhile  it  seemed 
as  if  the  Apostolic  line  in  England  was  about 
to  become  extinct.  But  God  willed  otherwise. 
The  isthmus  of  the  Reformed  Episcopate  re- 
mained intact.  There  were  but  few  left  to  pre- 
serve that  sacred  heritage,  but  these  were  enough 
and  more  than  enough  to  make  manifest  unto 
all  men  that  God  had  not  cast  away  His  people 
Avhom  He  foreknew,  but  lovingly  abode  with 
them  still. 

Now  all  men  rightly  believed  then  that  no  man 
could  be  made  a  Bishop  except  by  a  Bishop. 
The  belief  in  Apostolic  succession  is  simply  a 
matter  of  history.  It  does  not  admit  of  a  rea- 
sonable doubt  that  from  the  first  century  to  the 
sixteenth  men,  rightly  or  wrongly,  unquestiona- 
bly believed  that  none  could  be  ministers  of  the 
Church  unless  they  had  been  ordained  by  Bish- 
ops. Not  even,  in  their  judgment,  could  the 
Archangels  Michael  and  Gabriel — had  they  ap- 
peared in  the  midst  of  the  congregation  robed  in 
surplice  of  dazzling  whiteness  and  in  stole  of 
heavenl}^  richness — have  made  men  ministers  of 


THE   NAG'S   HEAD    FABLE  I99 

our  God.  "  Those  only  they  judged  lawfully 
called  or  sent  who  had  been  sent  by  men  who 
had  had  public  authority  given  unto  them  to 
call  and  send  laborers  into  the  Lord's  vineyard." 
Least  of  all  could  any  man  take  this  honor  unto 
himself  but  he  that  was  called  of  God,  as  was 
Aaron. 

There  are  some  nowadays  who  profess  to  be- 
lieve that  this  is  not  necessary.  Yet,  strangely 
enough,  the  most  intensely  Protestant  sects  of 
to-day  do  not  now  countenance  the  ordination  of 
preachers  by  mere  laymen.  It  matters  not  that 
to  laymen  they  must  eventually  retrace  their  or- 
ganic existence.  All  denominations  now  insist 
upon  some  ministerial  ordination  for  their  minis- 
ters. 

What  is  this  but  a  recognition  of  the  ancient 
doctrine  of  Apostolic  Succession  ?  There  is  in 
fact  no  difference  between  us  and  them  in  doc- 
trine, but  only  in  practice.  Our  Church  has  main- 
tained this  succession  for  eighteen  hundred  years, 
while  the  various  Protestant  religious  organiza- 
tions around  us  have  but  practised  it  for  three 
hundred  years  or  less  ;  our  Church  has  carried 
back  the  chain  to  the  Apostles  of  the  Lord  ;  other 
bodies  to  their  first  founders  and  organizers,  lay- 


200  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH    HISTORY 

men  or  clergymen,  as  is  expressed  in  the  coup- 

let: 

"  Wesley  his  hand  on  Coke  hath  laid, 
But  who  laid  hands  on  him  ?  " 

Compare  with  this  the  example  and  teaching  of 

Christ : 

"His  twelve  Apostles  first  He  made 
His  ministers  of  grace, 
And  they  their  hands  on  others  laid 
To  fill  in  turn  their  place." 

Happily  the  Catholic  Church  in  England,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  believed  all  this  and 
preached  all  this.  Now  the  first  to  be  conse- 
crated under  Elizabeth  was  Matthew  Parker, 
who  became  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  under 
such  circumstances  that  one  w^ould  have  sup- 
posed his  formal  and  canonical  consecration 
could  never  have  been  questioned. 

And  yet  this  reasonable  expectation  w^as 
doomed  to  disappointment.  Some  forty  years 
after  that  consecration,  a  story  was  circulated  to 
the  effect  that  he  had  never  been  duly  conse- 
crated. This  story  is  known  commonly  as  "  The 
Nag's  Head  Fable,"  and  as  it  has  been  exten- 
sively circulated  in  this  country  by  members  of 
the    Roman    Church,    a   Cardinal-Archbishop    of 


THE   NAG  S    HEAD    FABLE  201 

that  Church  having  even  sought  in  print  to  de- 
fend the  fable,  it  seems  necessary  to  give  some 
full  and  accurate  information  about  it — and  the 
more,  as  our  great  Maryland  lawyer  and  canonist, 
Hugh  Davy  Evans,  found  it  advisable  in  his 
time  not  only  to  write  a  book  to  show  its  mani- 
fold absurdities,  but  at  a  subsequent  period  to 
very  much  enlarge  the  same. 

We  have  Churchmen  among  us  who  dearly 
love  their  Church  and  who  would  even  if  need 
be  die  for  her.  But  when  these  Churchmen  are 
asked,  not  to  die  for  their  Church,  but  intelligent- 
ly to  defend  her,  then  they  hasten  to  occupy  the 
seat  of  the  unlearned  and  their  mouths  are  sealed 
in  silence.  ''  Oh,  your  Church,"  says  some  candid 
Romanist, ''  is  a  ver}^  good  one  in  its  wa}- ,  but  after 
all  it  is  a  very  new  affair  in  comparison  of  ours; 
we  don't  want  to  hurt  your  feelings,  but  really,  to 
be  frank,  we  don't  regard  yours  as  a  Church  at 
all.  Don't  you  remember  the  Nag's  Head  inci- 
dent ?  "  Well,  it  so  happens  that  they  don't  know 
anything  about  the  said  fable,  but  they  gather  from 
the  triumphant  tone  in  which  reference  is  made 
that  the  mention  of  it  is  so  convincing  to  their 
minds  that  practically  there  is  nothing  more  to  be 
said.     Our  friends  of  stanch  devotion  but  of  slen- 


202  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

der  knowledge  feel  that  they  have  the  worst  of 
the  argument,  and  they  are  grieved,  not  for  them- 
selves, but  for  the  Church.  They  are  like  a  man 
who  feels  that  he  is  not  as  healthy  as  he  used  to 
be.  He  would  like  to  consult  Doctor  so  and  so, 
but  he  is  afraid  that  the  doctor  will  pronounce 
him  in  a  bad  way.  Or  like  a  man  whose  ac- 
counts are  not  satisfactory,  he  feels  that  some- 
thing is  wrong,  and  he  would  like  to  have  every- 
thing examined  and  set  in  order,  but  he  dreads  to 
look  into  the  matter,  and  so  he  shuns  the  exam- 
ination. Even  so  our  Churchman  fears  he  will 
find  a  break  somewhere  cutting  him  off  from 
the  glorious  and  Apostolic  past,  and  he  is  afraid. 

What,  then,  is  this  terrible  "  Nag's  Head 
Fable"?  Briefly  it  is  this:  In  1604,  forty-four 
years  after  Parker's  consecration,  an  exiled  Ro- 
man priest  named  Holywood,  in  a  book  pub- 
lished in  Latin  at  Antwerp,  started  the  story 
which  bears  this  title.  He  pretended  that  the 
consecration  of  Archbishop  Parker  was  an  ir- 
regular ceremony  performed  at  ''  The  Nag's 
Head  Tavern,"  which  a  Chaplain  of  Bishop 
Bonner's  witnessed  by  peeping  through  a  key- 
hole in  the  door. 

We   are   invited    to    consider   this    marvellous 


THE   nag's   head    fable  203 

Story  as  of  necessity  discrediting  Anglican  or- 
ders. Why,  if  it  were  true,  what  difference 
would  it  make  in  our  Anglican  position  ?  A 
tavern  is  not  a  fit  place  certainly  for  such  a  re- 
ligious ceremony  as  the  consecration  of  a  Bishop. 
But  there  is  no  place  on  this  earth  where  a  con- 
secration rightly  performed  is  not  valid  and 
binding.  On  the  mountain-top  or  in  the  recess- 
es of  the  valley,  on  a  glistening  iceberg  or  a 
frail  raft  in  mid-ocean,  the  great  commission  of 
the  Episcopate  may  be  laid  on  a  man.  Where 
did  St.  Paul  consecrate  Timothy  ?  Where  Ti- 
tus ?  Surely  such  an  argument  as  this  is  not 
to  be  taken  seriously.  And  yet  it  is  this  argu- 
ment that  a  Cardinal-Archbishop  brings  forward 
against  the  validity  of  Anglican  orders. 

But  the  story  is  manifestly  false.  To  begin 
with,  Elizabeth  was  no  Puritan.  She  was  both 
Anglican  and  Catholic,  and,  for  her  own  sake, 
she  would  naturally  take  care  that  all  should  be 
rightly  done  at  Parker's  consecration.  It  Avas 
politically  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  her  that 
lovers  of  the  old  state  of  affairs  should  be  satis- 
fied. We  must  not  suppose  that  the  nation  was 
anything  but  Catholic  at  heart.  Churchmen 
might  be  willing  to  surrender  many  things,  but 


204  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

here  at  all  events  there  must  be  no  surrender. 
The  queen  knew  this,  and,  whatever  her  own  feel- 
ings and  desires  were,  she  would  have  been 
utterly  powerless  to  get  any  diocese  in  England 
to  acknowledge  as  its  Archbishop  anyone  who 
had  been  appointed  as  the  lay  officers  of  State 
were  appointed  or  as  are  elected  the  moderators 
of  the  Presbyterian  Synod.  But  that  there  should 
be  no  break,  that  all  should  be  done  in  essentials 
as  had  ever  been  done,  was  plainly  the  queen's 
own  will  and  desire. 

All  eyes  were  upon  the  queen.  There  must  be 
no  mistake.  Doubtless  it  was  to  this  very  jeal- 
ousy for  the  past  methods  in  essentials  that  we 
owe  the  unusually  careful  notes  and  entries  of 
various  kinds  which  we  have  of  these  events. 
Every  step,  from  the  selection  of  Parker  to  his 
consecration,  is  minutely  and  accurately  de- 
scribed. In  the  Lambeth  Register  there  is  given 
at  length  (we  quote  the  very  words  of  the  Reg- 
ister) ''The  order  of  the  Rites  and  ceremonies  ob- 
served in  the  Consecration  of  the  most  Rev.  Lord, 
Matthew  Parker,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in 
the  chapel  within  his  Manor  of  Lambeth,  on  Sun- 
day, the  17th  day  of  December  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty  nine." 


THE   NAG  S   HEAD    FABLE  205 

There  we  read  that  into  the  beautifully  adorned 
chapel  entered  early  in  the  morning  the  Arch- 
bishop-elect, vested  in  scarlet  cassock  and  hood, 
preceded  by  four  torches  and  accompanied  by  the 
four  Bishops  who  were  to  serve  at  his  consecra- 
tion, viz. :  William  Barlow,  Bishop  of  Bath  and 
Wells;  John  Scory,  Bishop  of  Chichester ;_  Miles 
Coverdale,  Bishop  of  Exeter,  and  John  Hodgkins, 
Bishop  Suffragan  of  Bedford.  Of  these  four  Bish- 
ops, two  had  been  consecrated  according  to  the 
Latin  form  of  the  old  English  ordinal  in  the  days 
of  Henry  VI I L,  and  two  according  to  the  English 
form  of  the  ordinal  during  the  reign  of  Edward 
VI.  Will  it  be  believed  that  the  whole  entry 
in  the  Register  is  pretended  by  Roman  writers 
to  be  a  forgery,  on  the  sole  ground  that  it  is  so 
very  minute  and  circumstantial  ?  According  to 
this  theory,  then,  vagueness,  indefiniteness,  and 
inexactness  are  marks  of  truth.  A  strange  conclu- 
sion  certainly.  ''  It  bears,"  says  a  writer  of  that 
Church  named  John  Williams,  "  intrinsic  evidence 
of  being  concocted  for  a  purpose.  The  scribe 
thought  to  himself  people  will  say,  '  Oh  it  must 
be  true,  it  is  so  circumstantial'  But  the  thing 
is  overdone — the  dish  is  over-spiced."  From 
mere  partisan  splenetic  writing  of  this  kind  it  is 


206  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

refreshing  to  turn  to  the  pages  of  the  eminent 
Roman  Catholic  historian  Dr.  Lingard,  and  read 
concerning  this  very  entry  in  the  Lambeth  Reg- 
ister these  words  :  "  One  objection  was  that  the 
official  Register  containing  a  full  account  of  the 
consecration  was  a  forgery.  But  there  was  noth- 
ing to  countenance  such  a  supposition.  The  most 
experienced  eye  could  not  discover  in  the  entry 
itself,  or  the  form  of  the  characters  or  the  color 
of  the  ink,  the  slightest  vestige  of  imposture. 
And  if  external  confirmation  were  wanting  there 
w^as  the  Archbishop's  Diar}^  and  the  Zui'ich  let- 
ters in  which  we  find  Sampson  informing  Peter 
Martyn  of  the  consecration." 

In  truth  this  thing  was  not  done  in  a  corner. 
Long  since  has  every  Roman  Catholic  of  note 
given  up  the  absurd  theory  of  forgery.  Even  op- 
ponents now  declare  that  the  entry  in  the  Register 
is  in  the  same  hand  as  the  entries  of  Cranmer  and 
Pole,  and  that  it  is  attested  by  the  same  notaries 
public  as  attested  Pole's  own  record.  Lingard 
speaks  of  any  denial  of  this  as  foll}^  But  there 
is  a  greater  name  still,  a  name  which  stands  for 
the  highest  attainments  in  theological  scholar- 
ship that  this  nineteenth  century  has  seen.  Dr. 
Von  DoUinger,  himself  a  Roman  till  driven  out  by 


THE  nag's  head  fable  207 

the  Papal  dogma  of  infallibility,  at  the  Conference 
in  Bonn  in  1875,  used  these  words:  "The  fact 
that  Parker  was  consecrated  by  four  rightly  con- 
secrated Bishops  with  imposition  of  hands  and 
the  necessary  words  is  so  well  attested  that  if 
one  chooses  to  doubt  this  fact  one  could  with 
the  same  right  doubt  one  hundred  thousand  facts. 
The  orders  of  the  Romanist  Church  could  be 
doubted  with  more  appearance  of  reason." 

What  sad  mistakes  men  make  in  not  keeping 
up  with  the  times.  The  information  they  possess 
is  as  valuable  as  a  last  year's  almanac.  Their 
want  of  knowledge  is  really  inexcusable  in  these 
days.  In  colonial  days  a  curious  result  of  thus 
being  behind  the  times  was  not  infrequent.  It 
was  then,  as  it  is  now,  the  custom  throughout  the 
colonies  of  Britain  to  pray  for  the  sovereign  and 
the  royal  family,  but  sometimes  it  happened  that 
news  of  the  sovereign's  death  did  not  reach  the 
distant  colony  till  months  after  the  event.  In  the 
meantime  prayers  were  offered  for  the  dead  but 
none  for  the  living  ruler  of  the  people.  The  min- 
ister was  not  up  to  the  times,  that  was  all.  And 
those  who  would  try  to  discredit  Parker's  conse- 
cration are  behind  the  times,  be  they  Cardinals, 
Archbishops,  or  laymen.     They  will  need  to  read, 


208  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest  not  what  we 
say,  but  what  the  men  of  their  own  Church  say 
concerning  the  unimpeachable  character  of  Par- 
ker's consecration. 

Now  what  are  we  asked  to  accept  as  the  alter- 
native, if  for  a  moment  we  assume  the  truth  of 
their  objection?     The  Nag's  Head  Fable. 

We  remember  some  years  ago  the  Rector  of  a 
parish  in  Newfoundland  describing  a  controversy 
which  he  had  had  in  a  very  pleasant  way  with 
the  Roman  priest  of  Ferry  land  (the  place  where 
the  first  Lord  Baltimore  settled  for  awhile  in  his 
province  of  Avalon,  before  he  and  his  family 
came  down  to  Maryland).  The  Roman  Catholic 
priest  at  Ferry  land  had  been  arguing  against  the 
validity  of  Anglican  orders,  but  without  much 
success,  until  finally  he  brought  up  his  heaviest 
gun  and  discharged  that  at  the  outworks  of  the 
enemy.  "  What,"  said  he,  with  the  air  of  a  man 
who  is  about  to  convince  with  an  overwhelming 
argument,  "  what  about  the  Nag's  Head  Fable  ? 
You  can't  answer  that.  You  can't  do  away  with 
the  force  of  the  argument  from  that."  ''  I  am 
right  glad,"  replied  the  Rector,  ''  to  hear  you  call 
it  a  fable.  I  have  always  regarded  it  as  such,  but 
I  am  pleased  to  hear  that  you  also  so  regard  it." 


THE   NAG  S   HEAD    FABLE  209 

The  Roman  had  not  a  word  to  say ;  out  of  his 
own  mouth  he  had  been  convicted.  The  Nag's 
Head  Fable  is  a  fable  and  nothing  more.  For  a 
time  it  served  its  purpose  and  helped  on  the 
Roman  cause,  as  the  false  decretals  did  in  a  great- 
er and  earlier  controversy,  but,  except  by  our 
Roman  friends  here  who  are  behind  the  times 
and  still  quote  it  with  approval,  we  rarely  hear 
it  mentioned. 

Under  the  Atlantic  Ocean  there  lies  that  won- 
derful production  of  enterprise  and  science, 
stretching  over  two  thousand  miles  through  the 
deep  sea,  the  telegraph  cable.  Let  that  cable  be 
all  sound  and  entire  except  in  one  particular  spot 
and  the  conducting  power  is  lost.  Thus  it  is 
with  the  Episcopate.  If  one  link  be  missing,  the 
conducting  power  of  the  Episcopacy  is  lost  at 
that  particular  spot.  But  in  all  the  Anglican 
chain  they  cannot  find  one  missing  link,  all  the 
links  are  perfect.  When  Matthew  Parker  was 
consecrated,  a  new  star  was  visibly  placed  in  the 
ecclesiastical  firmament.  He  became  Archbish- 
op of  Canterbury  with  the  hopes  of  a  Church 
and  nation  resting  upon  him.  How  glorious  a 
line  of  predecessors  had  gone  before  him  in  the 

chair  of  Augustine !      But    among    the   sainted 
•    i4 


2IO  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Archbishops,  the  Anselms  and  Thomases  and  Ed- 
munds, there  is  none  worthy  of  greater  honor 
than  the  unsainted  Archbishop  Parker.  Great 
and  glorious  were  his  services  to  the  cause  of 
truth,  and  if  we  may  speak,  as  we  surely  may,  of 
Elizabeth  as  a  providential  queen,  we  may  not  less 
certainly  proclaim  Matthew  Parker  as  a  provi- 
dential Archbishop  at  the  time  Avhen  the  whole 
Anglican  Episcopate  was  narrowed  down  as  it 
were  to  the  slender  dimensions  of  an  isthmus  be- 
tween two  broad  and  spreading  continents. 

There  is  that  in  the  English  Church  organi- 
zation which  gives  us  good  ground  to  hope  that 
to  her  will  be  granted  at  the  last  the  blessing  of 
the  peacemakers.  Let  us  hope  so,  praying  and 
working  meanwhile ;  and  for  this  purpose  no 
prayer  could  be  so  fitting  as  the  prayer  of  the 
man  of  blameless  life  and  great  learning,  Mat- 
thew Parker,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury :  "  The 
Lord  defend  His  Church  and  govern  it  with  His 
Holy  Spirit,  and  bless  the  same  with  all  pros- 
perous felicity.     Amen." 


XIII. 

SHAKESPEARE   A  SON  OF  THE  REFOR- 
MATION 


XIII. 

SHAKESPEARE   A  SON  OF  THE  REFOR- 
MATION 

"  What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  :  and  the  son  of 
man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ?  Thou  madest  him  lower  than  the 
angels  :  to  crown  him  with  glory  and  worship." — Psalms  viii. 

4-5. 

"  Students  of  biography,"  observed  Professor 
Drummond  in  his  chapter  on  environment,  "  will 
observe  that  in  all  well-written  lives  attention  is 
concentrated  for  the  first  few  chapters  upon  two 
points.  We  are  introduced  first  to  the  family  to 
which  the  subject  of  the  memoir  belongs,  and 
then  we  are  invited  to  consider  more  external  in- 
fluences. Schools  and  schoolmasters,  neighbors, 
home,  pecuniary  circumstances,  scenery,  and  by 
and  by  the  religious  and  political  atmosphere  of 
the  time.  And  these  two  forces,"  he  tells  us, 
''known  as  heredity  and  environment  are  the 
master  influences  of  the  organic  world." 

We  all  doubtless  agree  with  the  words  of  the 


214  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

distinguished  author  of  "  Natural  Law  in  the 
Spiritual  World,"  for  we  have  seen  proof  of  them 
again  and  again  and  we  know  them  to  be  true. 
The  Napoleon  Bonapartes,  the  George  Washing- 
tons,  the  Charles  Spurgeons,  even  the  Uncle 
Toms  and  the  Uriah  Heeps  of  our  day  are  what 
heredity  and  environment  have  made  them. 
Bishops,  cardinals,  judges,  generals,  merchants, 
lawyers,  bakers,  tailors,  saloon-keepers,  publi- 
cans and  sinners,  the  saints  and  the  elect,  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men  are  oftentimes  what 
they  are  because  of  their  training  and  surround- 
ings. Place,  for  example,  Spurgeon  in  Italy,  let 
him  be  born  and  educated  in  the  faith  of  the 
Italian  Church,  and  his  career  as  a  Baptist 
preacher  will  be  a  sheer  impossibility.  But  he 
might  become,  with  his  silvery  voice  and  mar- 
vellous powers  of  organization,  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  himself  and  the  inspirer  of  the  policy  of 
the  Holy  Roman  Church. 

What  we  are  is,  indeed,  all  very  much  a  matter 
ot  what  our  fathers  were,  and  what  our  own  sur- 
roundings are  or  have  been.  When,  therefore, 
the  Psalmist  asks:  What  is  man,  that  God  is 
mindful  of  him  ?  and  the  son  of  man,  that  He 
visits  him  ?    may  we  not   ourselves   answer   and 


SHAKESPEARE  A  SON  OF  THE  REFORMATION     215 

say :  ''  Man  is  a  creature  of  circumstances,  the 
child  of  the  past,  the  sport  of  the  present,  and 
the  plaything-  of  powers  which  seem  to  rob  him 
of  all  individuality  and  of  all  independence,  and 
make  him,  even  as  the  Psalmist  himself  tells  us,  a 
thing  of  naught,  whose  time  passeth  away  as  a 
shadow." 

And  3^et  another  answer  may  be  given,  an  an- 
swer which  we  owe  to  Shakespeare,  first  of  poets 
and  greatest  son  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  To 
him  man  is  a  piece  of  wonderful  w^orkmanship — 
*'  We  are  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of."  Hu- 
manity in  his  sight  w^as  not  far  from  Divinity. 
As  he  penetrated  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  re- 
cesses of  the  soul,  he  saw^  how  great  and  wonder- 
ful a  being  man  is.  He  cries  out  in  ''  Hamlet :  " 
"  How  noble  he  is  in  reason,  how  infinite  in  facul- 
ty ;  in  form  and  moving  how  express  and  admi- 
rable :  in  action  how  like  an  angel ;  in  appearance 
how  like  a  god,  the  beauty  of  the  world."  The 
voice  is  Hamlet's,  but  the  words  are  the  words 
of  Shakespeare. 

We  grant  all  this  too.  We  rejoice  in  it.  But 
we  still  maintain  that  man  is  largely  formed  by 
the  forces  that  surround  him,  and  even  Shake- 
speare himself  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.     Mani- 


2l6  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

festly  was  he  influenced  by  his  environment.  We 
speak,  indeed,  of  that  now,  understanding  by  the 
term  not  the  Avhole  but  only  a  part  of  the  idea, 
not  thinking  of  schools  or  school  companions,  nor 
yet  of  his  home  or  the  scenery  of  the  Warwick- 
shire lanes,  but  only  of  the  religious  and  political 
atmosphere  of  the  time.  He  was  the  product  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  outcome  of  the  search- 
ing after  truth  which  marked  his  age,  the  offspring 
of  the  spirit  of  religious  liberty,  the  most  gifted 
son  of  the  Anglican  Reformation,  born  of  its 
spirit  and  nurtured  under  its  influences. 

Had  Shakespeare  lived  one  century  earlier  or 
one  century  later,  he  could  not  have  been  what 
he  was.  There  were  forces  at  work  in  his  day 
which  at  an  earlier  period  had  not  come  into  ex- 
istence, and  at  a  later  had  spent  themselves,  and 
those  forces  gave  us  Shakespeare  as  we  know 
him.  And  what  a  glorious  gift  he  was  !  He  was 
of  the  Elizabethan  age  and  of  that  only.  He 
stood  at  the  meeting-point  of  two  great  epochs 
in  our  history.  Just  when  the  usurped  domin- 
ion of  the  Papal  court  over  the  national  Church 
was  waning  forever  in  England,  and  before  that 
Church  had  been  called  to  see  the  unlovely  flower 
of  Puritanism  blossoming  in  her  vineyard.  Shake- 


SHAKESPEARE  A  SON  OF  THE  REFORMATION     21/ 

speare  was  sent  to  catch  the  inspiration  of  the  mo- 
ment and  in  immortal  verse  give  proof  that  the 
doctrines  and  practice  of  the  Anglican  Church  are 
the  happy  mean  between  the  two  extremes  into 
which  religious  men  have  fallen. 

And  he  does  this  in  that  spirit  of  toleration  and 
kindly  sympathy  and  consideration  for  the  views 
of  others  with  which  we  are  familiar  as  a  trait  of 
Anglican  Churchmen.  He  illustrated,  indeed,  in 
his  own  life  the  avoidance  of  extremes.  He  was 
no  violent  partisan,  though  he  lived  in  troublous 
times.  He  was  no  scorner  of  other  men's  creeds. 
He  saw  good  everywhere  and  in  everything.  He 
shared  that  larger  hope 

"  That  nothing-  walks  with  aimless  feet, 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroy 'd 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete." 

Of  this  no  better  proof  can  there  be  than  that  some 
even  regard  him  as  a  favorer  of  Papal  supremacy, 
while  others  again  conceive  of  him  as  caring  for 
none  of  those  things,  claiming  that  he  was  wholly 
indifferent  to  the  distinctions  of  religious  belief. 
It  is  not  so.  It  is  not  so.  He  knew  whom  he 
had  believed,  but  life  was  too  full  of  mystery  for 


2l8  LECTURES    ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

him  to  condemn  others  when  they  had  fallen  with 
the  weight  of  cares 

"  Upon  the  world's  great  altar-stairs 
That  slope  through  darkness  up  to  God." 

Shakespeare,  we  say,  lived  in  troublous  times. 
Yet  the  country  was  united  as  one  man.  His 
countrymen  w^ere  patriots  first,  whatever  they 
might  be  afterwards.  Elizabeth  was  the  centre 
of  national  aspirations  and  of  national  hopes. 
One  of  the  first  sights  to  greet  him  in  the  streets 
of  London,  when  he  came  to  live  in  the  great  me- 
tropolis, was  the  marching  of  men  to  Tilbury 
Docks  to  join  the  fleets  against  the  Spaniard. 
There  was  need  of  patriotism.  There  was  need 
that  men  move  as  a  unit.  As  Innocent  III.  in  the 
reisrn  of  King:  John  had  asserted  his  ris^ht  to  de- 
pose  the  English  sovereign,  and  release  English- 
men from  the  bond  of  allegiance,  so  another 
Pope — Sixtus  V. — was  now  claiming  that  power 
and  right.  History  was  repeating  itself.  The 
Church  and  nation  had  come  to  the  verge  of  an- 
other period,  when  a  voice  should  declare  again 
those  words  that  should  never  die :  "  The  Eng- 
lish Church  shall  be  free  and  hold  her  rights  en- 
tire and  her  liberties  inviolate."     For  the  Armada 


SHAKESPEARE  A  SON  OF  THE  REFORMATION     219 

was  a  religious  crusade.  It  was  the  army  of  a 
Church  going  to  make  war  upon  another  Church, 
forgetful  of  Christ's  warning :  "  They  that  take  the 
sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword  "  :  ''  If  my  king- 
dom were  of  this  world,  then  would  my  servants 
fight :  but  now  is  my  kingdom  not  from  hence." 

In  these  times  of  doubt  and  trouble,  of  anxiety 
and  perplexity,  Shakespeare  sends  forth  his  con- 
tribution to  the  cause  of  England's  Church.  He 
sounds  the  trumpet  of  battle,  and  he  gives  no  un- 
certain sound.  He  comes  as  a  second  Stephen 
Langton,  and  what  can  he  do  better  than  send 
men  back  in  thought  to  that  earlier  time  when 
their  liberty — the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  had 
made  them  free — was  in  jeopardy  ?  In  his  play 
of  "  King  John  "  we  hear  the  voice  of  a  true  son  of 
the  national  Church.  In  that  play  he  depicts  the 
ambition,  the  faithlessness,  the  sophistry  of  the 
Court  of  Rome.  When  Philip  of  France,  hearing 
John's  reply  to  Pandulph,  exclaims,  "  Brother  of 
England,  you  blaspheme  in  this :  "  hear  his  reply, 

"  Though  you  and  all  the  kings  of  Christendom 
Are  led  so  grossly  by  this  meddling  priest, 
Dreading  the  curse  that  money  may  buy  out, 
And  by  the  merit  of  vile  gold,  dross,  dust, 
Purchase  corrupted  pardon  of  a  man 


220  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Who  in  that  sale  sells  pardon  from  himself, 
Though  you  and  all  the  rest  so  grossly  led 
This  juggling  witchcraft  with  revenue  cherish, 
Yet  I,  alone,  alone  do  me  oppose 
Against  the  Pope,  and  count  his  friends  my  foes." 

Yet  even  here,  in  this  very  place,  Ave  mark  his 
kindly  spirit :  for  in  his  "  King  John  "  Shakespeare 
had  followed  an  old  play  in  two  parts,  at  the  end 
of  which  there  was  a  ribald  scene  in  which  the 
licentiousness  of  the  monks  was  exposed  to  ridi- 
cule. But  this  scene  he  wholly  omits.  If  we  re- 
member that  this  play  was  written  when  excite- 
ment was  still  high,  and  at  a  time  when  most  if 
not  all  of  the  monasteries  had  been  destroyed  on 
the  very  ground — a  Roman  Cardinal  being  the 
judge  —  that  the  salt  had  lost  its  savor  and  was 
therefore  good  for  nothing  but  to  be  cast  out  and 
trodden  under  foot  of  men,  his  silence  becomes 
most  noteworthy.  We  may  be  sure  that  to  hold 
up  to  hatred,  ridicule,  and  contempt  as  untrue  to 
their  vows  the  members  of  religious  orders,  would 
have  been  highly  popular.  But  there  is  a  noble 
absence  of  anything  of  this  kind.  Shakespeare  is 
never  guilty  of  playing  to  the  gallery.  For  a 
passing  popularity,  for  which  some  men  seem  will- 
ing to  barter  their  souls,  he  never  swerves  a  hair's- 


SHAKESPEARE  A  SON  OF  THE  REFORMATION     221 

breadth  from  the  path  he  had  marked  out  as  right. 
It  is  in  his  treatment  of  religion  and  religious  per- 
sons that  Shakespeare  is  seen  to  be  so  immeasu- 
rably superior  to  all  others.  In  this  respect  what 
a  charm  separates  him  from  our  greatest  writers 
since  his  day  !  We  read  Dickens  or  Thackeray, 
Walter  Scott  or  George  Eliot,  and  there  is  the 
same  fault  in  all,  an  ungenerous  treatment  if  not 
of  religion  at  least  of  those  who  represent  it. 
Think  of  such  whom  you  find  in  their  pages,  and 
you  can  barely  call  to  mind  one  whom  you  would 
wish  to  have  as  a  pastor.  The  Chadbands  of 
Dickens  or  the  Charles  Honeymans  of  Thacke- 
ray, what  contemptible  creatures  they  are  !  Even 
when  no  evil  thing  is  said  of  them  they  are 
spoken  of  slightingly,  as  if  they  were  the  legiti- 
mate targets  for  the  arrows  of  ridicule  and  amuse- 
ment : 

"  Hear  how  he  clears  the  point  o'  faith 
Wi'  ratthn'  an'  thumpin'  ! 
Now  meekly  calm,  now  wild  in  wrath, 
He's  stampin'  an'  he's  jumpin' !  " 

There  is  nothing  of  this  in  Shakespeare.  He  has 
no  shafts  of  ridicule  for  those  who,  however  un- 
worthily, represented  religion.     Over   their  sins 


222  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

and  failings  he  throws  the  veil  of  that  divine 
chanty  which  both  hopeth  all  things  and  be- 
lieveth  all  things.  The  Avorld  had,  indeed,  in- 
volved them  all  in  one  common  ruin.  Their  day 
was  past  and  gone.  They  had  fallen  into  con- 
demnation. But  nobly  does  the  great  poet  take 
his  stand.  He  will  not  throw  w^ater  on  the 
drowned  rat.  He  will  not  join  in  the  hue  and 
cry.  To  condemn  the  righteous  with  the  wicked 
is  not  in  his  nature,  and  it  finds  no  expression  in 
his  life.  For  the  sake  of  their  profession  he  will 
speak  generously  of  all,  remembering  that  to 
their  own  Master  they  must  stand  or  fall.  It  is 
thus  he  ever  speaks :  ''  Forbear  to  judge,  for  we 
are  sinners  all." 

Again,  Shakespeare  does  not,  like  Byron,  pol- 
lute the  altar  of  genius  with  strange  fire.  He  is 
ever  practically  saying :  "  He  that  will  love  life, 
and  see  good  days,  let  him  refrain  his  tongue 
from  evil,  and  his  lips  that  they  speak  no  guile: 
Let  him  eschew  evil,  and  do  good ;  let  him  seek 
peace,  and  ensue  it."  Tell  me  not  that  Shake- 
speare did  not  love  innocency,  had  not  the  loftiest 
of  standards.  Is  there  a  play  that  he  has  written 
that  makes  man  the  worse  for  reading  it  ?  Is 
there  a  character  he  has  painted  from  which  we 


SHAKESPEARE  A  SON  OF  THE  REFORMATION     223 

draw  an  inspiration  to  do  evil  ?  He  has  shown 
men  the  danger,  as  he  only  can,  of  giving  way 
to  temptation  and  strengthening  themselves  in 
wickedness.  What  a  reality  to  him  was  the  devil, 
and  how  has  he  portrayed  his  crafts  and  assaults, 
his  wiles,  devices  and  disguises,  for  the  warning 
of  the  unwary  and  unstable  : 

"  Mark  you  this,  Bassanio,  the  devil  can  cite 
Scripture  for  his  purpose." 

Shakespeare  preached  from  no  church  pulpit. 
In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word  he  never 
preached  a  sermon  in  his  life,  yet  he  did  preach. 
The  stage  of  the  Globe  Theatre  was  his  pulpit, 
and  the  audience  that  gathered  before  him  his 
congregation.  But  what  congregations  has  he 
had  since  !  Was  there  ever  a  preacher  more  uni- 
versally heard  or  read  ?  What  tens  of  millions 
has  he  taught  that  what  a  man  soweth,  that  shall 
he  also  reap  !  See  how  he  makes  this  terrible 
truth  so  plain  that  none  can  be  ignorant  of  it. 
What  a  weird  and  awful  scene  is  that  when,  on 
the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Bosworth  Hill,  one  after 
another  of  the  spirits  of  those  whom  he  had 
slain  comes  to  Richard  HI.  and  bids  him  despair 
and  die.     Prince  Edward,  King  Henry,  Clarence, 


224  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

his  own  Queen  Anne,  and  last  of  all  Bucking- 
ham, 

"  The  first  that  helped  him  to  the  crown, 
The  last  to  feel  his  tyranny." 

And  then  see  in  the  tent  of  Richmond,  his  oppo- 
nent, one  who  can  say  : 

"  For  remember  this, 
God  and  our  good  cause  fight  upon  our  side, 
The  prayers  of  holy  saints  and  wrongdd  souls, 
Like  high-reared  bulwarks,  stand  before  our  face." 

But  all  the  while  the  guilty  king  is  in  agony  of 
fear  as  he  hears  that  fearful  word  from  each  : 
"  Despair  and  die !  " 

So  it  was  with  the  dying  Beaufort,  Bishop  of 
Winchester  and  a  Roman  Cardinal,  who  had  mur- 
dered Gloster.  As  his  own  death  drew  near,  he 
could  think  of  nothing  else  but  the  murder  he  had 
done,  muttering,  incoherently  :  "  Oh,  torture  me 
no  more !  I  will  confess."  Well  might  the  good 
king,  standing  by  such  a  death-bed,  pray : 

"  O  thou  Eternal  Mover  of  the  heavens. 
Look  with  a  gentle  eye  upon  this  wretch, 
Oh,  beat  away  the  busy  meddling  fiend 
That  lays  strong  siege  unto  this  wretched  one, 
And  from  his  bosom  purge  this  black  despair." 


SHAKESPEARE  A  SON  OF  THE  REFORMATION     22  5 

But  in  nothing  is  Shakespeare  more  truly  a  son 
of  the  Reformation  than  in  his  love  of  the  Script- 
ures and  his  constant  use  of  them  in  daily  life. 
The  Reformation  brought  out  of  its  obscurity  the 
word  of  God,  and  restored  it  to  its  rightful  place 
of  honor.  Men  now  began  to  ask,  "  What  saith  the 
Lord  ?  "  and,  like  the  noble  Bereans,  they  searched 
the  Scriptures  daily  for  the  Lord's  answer. 

But  what  a  diligent  student  of  that  new  learn- 
ing was  Shakespeare  !  No  writer  in  these  days 
of  multiplied  Bibles  has  ever  shown  a  greater 
knowledge.  He  seemed  to  know  it  all  from  Gen- 
esis to  Revelation.  There  are  said  to  be  no  less 
than  five  hundred  and  fifty  biblical  quotations,  al- 
lusions, references,  and  sentiments  in  his  works, 
''  Hamlet "  alone  contains  about  eighty,  ''  Richard 
HL"  nearly  fifty,  and  ''  Henry  V."  and  ''  Richard 
H."  about  forty  each.  He  quotes  from  fifty-four 
of  the  books  of  the  Bible,  and  not  one  of  his  thirty- 
seven  plays  is  without  a  scriptural  reference. 
Here  it  is  that  he  is  most  clearly  seen  to  be 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  our  Church ;  that  spirit 
which  finds  expression  in  her  declaration  that 
''  Holy  Scripture  containeth  all  things  necessary 
for  salvation  ;  so  that  whatsoever  is  not  read  there- 
in, nor  may  be  proved  thereby,  is  not  to  be  required 
15 


226  LECTURES    ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  any  man,  that  it  should  be  believed  as  an  article 
of  the  Faith."  It  is  in  this  wide  knowledge  of 
Scripture  that  we  find  on  the  one  hand,  the  secret 
of  Shakespeare's  freedom  from  all  mediaeval  error 
and  superstitions ;  and  on  the  other,  his  clear 
grasp  of  the  great  central  truths  of  Christianity. 
How  beautifully  has  he  set  forth  one  of  these 
great  truths — the  scheme  of  our  redemption  : 

"  Why,  all  the  souls  that  were,  were  forfeit  once, 
And  He  that  might  the  vantage  best  have  took 
Found  out  the  remedy." 

Truly  this  man  of  marvellous  powers,  with  his 
deep  insight  into  scriptural  truth,  his  mighty 
charity,  his  zeal  for  the  right,  was  made  a  little 
lower  than  the  angels,  and  has  been  crowned  with 
glor}^  and  worship.  Of  him  we  say,  as  he  spake 
in  ''  Julius  Caesar  :  " 

"  His  life  was  gentle :  and  the  elements 
So  mixed  in  him,  that  nature  might  stand  up 
And  say  to  all  the  world,  This  was  a  man." 

How  the  true  gospel  spirit  shines  out  in  that 
last  supreme  moment  just  before  his  death,  when 
first  of  all  and  before  all,  dictating  his  last  will 
and  testament,  he  said   that   he  commended  his 


SHAKESPEARE  A  SON  OF  THE  REFORMATION     22/ 

soul  to  God  his  Creator,  and  thus  (these  are  his 
exact  words)  ''  hoping  and  assuredly  believing 
through  the  only  merits  of  Jesus  Christ,  my 
Saviour,  to  be  made  partaker  of  life  everlasting." 
''  We  called,"  said  Carlyle,  ''  Dante  the  melodious 
priest  of  Middle-Age  Catholicism." 

We  thank  God  that  in  him  we  behold  one  of 
whom  this  may  be  truly  said.  But  the  melodi- 
ous priest  of  a  true  Catholicism  without  supersti- 
tion, intolerance  or  fanatical  fierceness,  is  William 
Shakespeare — son  of  the  Anglican  Reformation  in 
the  sixteenth  century. 


XIV. 
PURITANISM 


XIV. 
PURITANISM 

"  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  net,  that  was  cast 
into   the  sea,   and  gathered  of  every  kind." — St.  Matthew 

xiii.  47. 

Off  the  western  coast  of  southern  Italy,  be- 
tween the  mainland  and  the  island  of  Sicily,  lie 
Scylla  and  Charybdis,  the  rock  and  the  whirlpool 
of  ancient  myth  and  legend.  There  the  mariners 
of  the  Old  World  most  dreaded  the  perils  of  the 
deep.  There  they  most  fervently  prayed  their 
gods  for  protection  against  the  double  danger  of 
being  wrecked  upon  the  one,  whilst  trying  to 
avoid  the  other.  Hence  the  proverb  :  "  Between 
*Scylla  and  Charybdis." 

Now  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  national 
Church  of  England  was  as  a  ship  making  the  dan- 
gerous passage  between  Romanism  and  Puritan- 
ism. The  good  ship  was  sailing  between  the  rag- 
ing waves  of  foreign  interference  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  bare  rocks  of  unhistorical  innovations  on 


232  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

the  other.  Not  entirely  unscathed,  however,  did 
she  pass  by  the  Roman  whirlpool.  Her  pilot, 
Thomas  Cranmer,  was  overwhelmed  by  its  fury 
and  deprived  of  his  life ;  a  hostile  pilot  seized  her 
wheel  by  force  and  put  many  of  her  faithful  sail- 
ors to  death.  In  a  short  while,  however,  her  crew 
rallied,  and  under  a  pilot  of  her  own  choosing — 
the  skilful  Archbishop,  Matthew  Parker  —  she 
passed  out  into  the  calmer  waters  beyond,  bearing 
high  upon  her  mainmast  a  banner  inscribed  with 
the  words :  "  No  Italian  priest  shall  tithe  or  toll 
in  these  our  dominions." 

It  is  now  for  us  to  see  how  she  escaped  the 
cragged  rock  of  Puritanism.  Never  since  apos- 
tolic men  had  preached  the  Gospel  in  Britain,  had 
the  Church  known  more  perilous  times  ;  barely 
was  she  saved  from  complete  destruction.  The 
spirit  of  evil  had  taken  possession  of  her  foes,  and 
made  them  relentless  and  cruel.  Against  her 
they  stood  up  and  raged  together ;  against  her 
they  imagined  a  vain  thing,  and  for  a  time  it 
seemed  as  if  their  cause  would  triumph.  Yet  she 
was  able  to  exclaim  in  her  hour  of  uttermost 
need  :  ''  Rejoice  not  against  me,  O  mine  enemy, 
for  when  I  fall  I  shall  rise  again."  The  night  was 
dark  and  stormy  and  full  of  danger,  but  at  List 


PURITANISM  233 

she  sailed  by  the  perilous  rock  and  found  herself 
again  in  calmer  waters,  yet 

"  With  torn  sails,  provisions  short, 
And  only  not  a  wreck." 

Coming  back  from  the  region  of  metaphor  to 
that  of  plain  fact,  we  may  say  that  ere  the  nation- 
al Church  had  had  time  to  congratulate  herself 
upon  her  safe  deliverance  from  the  power  of  the 
Papacy,  ere  the  Te  Deums  had  ceased  to  roll 
through  the  choirs  of  her  cathedrals,  or  the  fires  of 
rejoicings  had  died  down  on  the  tops  of  the  hills, 
this  new  danger  was  seen  close  at  hand.  It  is 
ever  a  tendency  of  the  human  mind  to  go  from 
one  extreme  to  the  other;  and  so  men  rushed 
from  mediasvalism,  from  the  acceptance  of  gross 
superstitions,  and  from  an  uncatholic  method  of 
church  government,  to  the  wildest  rejection  of 
apostolic  truth  and  order.  Inspired  by  a  bitter 
remembrance  of  wrong  done,  they  hated  with 
a  blind  unreasoning  hatred  everything  which 
seemed  to  savor  of  Rome's  teaching.  Sponsors 
and  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  baptism,  music  and 
organs,  the  ring  in  the  marriage  service,  and 
kneeling  at  the  reception  of  the  blessed  Sacra- 
ment— all   were  anathematized.     Even   the  inno- 


234  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

cent  and  comely  surplice  was  bitterly  spoken 
against  as  the  idolatrous  gear  of  the  Papists,  and 
as  a  vestment  of  Baal. 

As  the  ball  which  the  school-boy  rolls  along 
over  the  freshly  fallen  snow  silently  gathers  in 
size  and  weight,  until  it  becomes  too  large  to  be 
controlled  any  longer,  so  it  was  with  the  strange 
misapprehensions  of  Puritanism.  It  is  probable 
that  the  earlier  Puritans  would  have  stood  aghast 
at  the  excesses  of  the  later ;  but  it  was  they  who 
had  evoked  the  Frankenstein.  Beginning  with 
objections  against  small  matters  of  ritual  and  cer- 
emony, the  Puritans  went  on  until  they  had  abol- 
ished both  Prayer  Book  and  Episcopacy ;  had 
wrought  havoc  in  the  desecrated  churches  of  their 
ancestors  ;  had  persecuted  the  faithful  with  the 
sword  ;  had  brought  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury to  the  scaffold ;  had  dismembered  the  king- 
dom and  beheaded  the  king  ;  had  overthrown  both 
the  Constitution  and  the  national  Church,  and  had 
desecrated  the  graves:  of  those  long  since  dead. 
Yet  they  termed  themselves  the  congregation  of 
the  Lord.  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  An  unholy 
Puritan  was  a  contradiction  in  terms.  The  Puri- 
tan was  already  a  member  of  the  aristocracy  of 
heaven.     '*  He    walked    with    God  "    like    Enoch. 


PURITANISM  235 

Puritanism  had  no  sinners,  no  chaff  amongst  its 

wheat ;  this  was  the  difference  between  Puritans 

and  other  men. 

"  All  piety  consists  therein 
In  them,  in  other  men  all  sin." 

This  unhappy  result  was  not  due  to  the  excesses 
of  a  few  erring  individuals,  but  to  the  logical 
working  out  of  the  system  ;  the  principles  of  the 
true  Puritan  made  him  necessarily  intolerant ;  he 
was  right  and  all  other  men  were  wrong,  and  it 
was  his  solemn  duty  to  bring  them  to  the  truth. 
His  method  has  well  been  described  in  ''  Hudi- 

bras :  " 

"  For  he  was  of  that  stubborn  crew 
Of  errant  saints  whom  all  men  grant 
To  be  the  true  Church  militant : 
Such  as  do  build  their  faith  upon 
The  holy  text  of  pike  and  gun, 
Decide  all  controversy  by 
Infallible  artillery  : 
And  prove  their  doctrine  orthodox 
By  apostolic  blows  and  knocks  ; 
Call  fire  and  sword  and  desolation 
A  godly  thorough  Reformation." 

This  is  no  parody  :  the  founders  of  Puritanism 
and  its  best  men  gloried  in  the  principle  here  laid 
down.     They  made  the  persecution  of  others  a 


236  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

part  of  their  creed;  Mohammed  offered  the  alter- 
native of  the  Koran  or  the  sword.  They  offered 
a  similar  choice.  '^  I  deny,"  wrote  Cartwright 
(whom  Neale,  the  Puritan  historian,  calls  the 
"  Father  of  the  Puritans  "),  "  that  upon  reforma- 
tion there  ought  to  follow  any  pardon  of  death. 
Heretics  ought  to  be  put  to  death  now."  It  must 
be  admitted  they  were  consistent  in  their  after- 
dealings  with  so-called  heretics,  and  in  no  way  de- 
parted from  the  teaching  of  their  chief  apostles. 
Ah,  when  will  men  be  wise?  When  will  they  learn 
from  the  mistakes  of  the  past  ?  When  will  they 
have  sanctified  common-sense,  and  be  true  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Scriptures  which  they  acknowl- 
edge as  their  guide  ?  When,  indeed,  did  persecu- 
tion help  any  cause  ?  The  Romanist  tried  it  and 
failed.  "  Look  to  the  Netherlands,"  exclaims  Pole 
to  Gardiner  in  the  midst  of  Mary's  persecution : 

"  Look  to  the  Netherlands,  wherein  have  been 
Such  holocausts  of  heresy — to  what  end  ? 
For  yet  the  faith  is  not  established  there. 
Gardiner.         The  end's  not  come. 

Pole.  No,  nor  this  way  will  come, 

Seeing  there  lie  two  ways  to  every  end — 
A  better  and  a  worse — the  worse  is  here 
To  persecute,  because  to  persecute 
Makes  a  faith  more  hated." 


PURITANISM  237 

Now  what  is  this  Puritanism  which  makes  such 
lofty  claims,  and  enshrines  intolerance  as  an  arti- 
cle of  its  creed  ?  We  hrst  meet  with  it  by  name 
in  1564,  but  the  thing-  itself  is  as  old  as  religion. 
The  Pharisees  were  the  earlier  Puritans  ;  they 
thanked  God  they  were  not  as  other  men  were. 
The  Puritans  were  ever  doing  the  same.  Crom- 
well's Puritan  soldiers  were  the  saints  who  looked 
upon  themselves  as  God's  chosen  instruments  for 
the  punishment  of  evil-doers,  and  for  the  praise 
of  them  that  do  well.  They  weix  not  sinners  as 
other  men.  They  were  children  of  the  light : 
other  men  dwelt  in  darkness.  The  Church,  in 
their  view%  was  a  congregation  of  faithful  men 
into  which  nothing  entered  that  defiled  or  worked 
abomination  or  made  a  lie ;  their  ideal  was  lofty, 
but  it  was  not  scriptural.  Christ  spoke  of  a  very 
different  Church.  His  Church  was  ''  like  unto  a 
net,  that  was  cast  into  the  sea,  and  gathered  of 
every  kind."  "  Puritanism,"  says  Carlyle,  "  is  the 
faith  that  became  Scotland's,  New  England's, 
Oliver  Cromwell's,"  and  he  tells  us  that  history 
will  have  something  to  say  about  this  for  some 
time  to  come.  Probably  it  will,  but  we  trust  that 
its  record  in  the  future  will  be  more  lovely  than 
it  has  been  in  the  past,  or  history  may  shed  tears 


2^S  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

and  weep  because  of  it,  and  wish  her  task  were 
given  to  another.  Never  had  a  system  of  relig- 
ion better  opportunity  to  establish  itself  in  men's 
hearts.  In  Old  England  and  in  New  Eng- 
land it  has  been  tried  in  a  field  where  it  had  no 
rival ;  in  both  countries  it  once  for  a  time  held 
the  sceptre  of  absolute  dominion.  What,  then, 
may  we  ask,  have  been  the  fruits  of  Puritanism  ? 
It  is  after  all  by  the  fruits  that  we  must  judge  of 
any  religious  system.  "  Wherefore,"  saith  Christ, 
''  by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

All  through  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  the  Puritans 
were  growing  in  numbers,  in  power,  and  in  influ- 
ence, zvithin  the  national  Church,  but  they  were 
not  of  her.  Their  model  was  Geneva,  and  their  pa- 
tron saint  was  John  Calvin.  Their  ambition  was 
to  see  the  time  when  no  child  v/ould  be  signed  in 
baptism  with  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  no  min- 
ister ever  wear  a  surplice ;  when  every  memory 
of  the  past  would  be  forgotten,  every  sign  of 
that  past  obliterated,  and  every  Catholic  usage 
abolished  ;  when,  in  fact,  the  old  Church  should 
be  no  more  and  the  Puritans  alone  be  masters  in 
the  land. 

Their  ambition  was  for  a  time  gratified.  They 
saw  the  national  Church  overthrown,  its   minis- 


PURITANISM  239 

ters  proscribed,  and  themselves  masters  of  both 
Church  and  State.  And  one  of  the  first  acts  by 
which  they  heralded  their  accession  to  power  was 
to  charge  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbur}^  with 
treason,  and  send  him  a  prisoner  to  the  Tower. 
(3n  the  evening  of  the  day  he  was  arrested  he 
wrote  these  words  in  his  diary  :  ''  I  stayed  at  Lam- 
beth till  the  evening  to  avoid  the  gaze  of  the  peo- 
ple. I  went  to  evening  prayers  in  my  chapel. 
The  Psalms  of  the  day  and  chapter  fifty  of  Isaiah 
gave  me  great  comfort.  God  make  me  worthy 
of  it  and  fit  to  receive  it.  As  I  went  to  my  barge 
hundreds  of  my  poor  neighbors  stood  there  and 
prayed  for  my  safety  and  return  to  my  house,  for 
which  I  bless  God  and  them." 

Four  years  later  he  was  brought  to  trial,  when 
even  his  enemies  acknowledged  that  they  could 
find  no  just  occasion  against  him  to  put  him  to 
death  ;  yet  he  must  not  live — 

"  Prejudged  by  foes  determined  not  to  spare, 
An  old  weak  man  for  vengeance  thrown  aside." 

Happily  he  had  no  ground,  like  Wolsey,  to  re- 
proach himself  with  neglect  of  duty  ;  for  with 
single-mindedness  and  unity  of  purpose  he  had 
served  his  God  well ;  he  was  the  one  man  of  that 


240  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

clay  who  saw  clearly  the  true  Catholic  position  of 
our  Church. 

On  Tower  Hill,  in  the  seventy-third  year  of  his 
age,  in  1645,  he  was  beheaded — the  second  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  to  be  unjustly  executed  as 
a  common  felon  in  the  course  of  one  century. 
Our  debt  to  him  is  enormous.  We  cannot  all 
see  it  now,  but  in  the  strong  words  of  Professor 
Mozley  :  "  he  had  saved  the  English  Church." 
"  The  good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the 
sheep." 

But  the  end  had  not  been  reached.  The  men 
who  had  struck  down  an  Archbishop  sought  a 
king  next — a  king  whose  principles  were  the  same 
as  those  of  the  martyred  archbishop.  The  fore- 
gone conclusion  was  soon  reached ;  amid  popular 
excitement,  w^th  the  air  resounding  with  cries  of 
"Justice,  justice!"  Charles  the  First  passed  to 
his  doom,  and  the  whole  kingdom  was  convulsed 
for  twelve  3'ears. 

And  then  began  the  reign  of  the  saints.  To  this 
very  day  the  cathedrals  and  parish  churches  in 
England  bear  silent  witness  to  the  character  of 
that  rule,  for  those  churches  were  treated  as  if 
they  had  been  temples  of  Baal ;  the  Puritans 
broke  down  all  the  carved  work  thereof  with  axes 


PURITANISM  241 

and  hammers  and  defiled  the  dweUing-place  of 
God's  name  even  unto  the  ground.  Over  eight 
thousand  clergymen,  most  of  them  with  wives 
and  children,  were  deprived  of  their  means  of 
support  and  many  died  of  want.  The  use  of  the 
Prayer  Book  in  public  or  private  was  rigorous- 
ly forbidden,  and  it  was  made  a  crime  for  even 
a  child  to  read  by  the  bedside  of  a  sick  parent 
one  of  those  beautiful  collects  which  the  whole 
world  now  justly  admires.  Even  Macaulay,  who 
tells  us  this,  seems  not  to  have  wholly  loved  the 
Puritans.  ''  They  objected  to  bull-baiting,"  he 
says,  ''  but  it  was  not  so  much  for  the  pain  it  gave 
the  bulls  as  for  the  pleasure  it  gave  the  specta- 
tors." Do  you  wonder  that  the  very  name  of 
Puritan  is  now  looked  for  in  vain  amone  our 
sects  and  denominations  ?  Who  are  the  Puri- 
tans to-day  ?  In  Elizabeth's  day  they  were  Pres- 
byterians ;  in  Cromwell's  day  they  were  Indepen- 
dents. But  who  are  they  now  ?  We  hear  of 
no  Puritan  Church  among  all  the  churches  with 
Avhich  we  are  afflicted.  Is  it  because  its  record 
has  not  been  one  of  unstained  beauty  and  love- 
liness? 

But  Puritanism  crossed  the  Atlantic  and  plant- 
ed itself  on  our  New  England  coast,  in  search,  we 
16 


242  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

are  told,  of  religious  liberty.     It  has  been  beauti- 
fully sung 

"  Ay,  call  it  holy  ground, 
The  soil  where  first  they  trod  ; 
They  have  left  unstained  what  there  they  found, 
Freedom  to  worship  God  :  " 

But  this  is  the  dreaming  of  poetry. 

In  the  Puritan  colony  one  knew  exactly  his 
duty  and  what  he  could  not  do.  He  might  not 
run  or  even  walk  on  the  Sabbath  day,  except  rev- 
erently to  the  meeting.  Mothers  were  advised 
not  to  kiss  their  children  on  the  Sabbath  day,  and 
absence  from  public  worship  was  followed  by  fine 
and  whipping.  The  rulers  of  the  congregations, 
true  to  their  Jewish  anti-types,  were  thus  mak- 
ing the  commandments  of  God  of  none  effect 
by  their  traditions,  laying  heavy  burdens  upon 
men's  shoulders,  and  teaching  for  doctrines  the 
commandments  of  men. 

Yet  their  intentions  were  good.  They  meant 
to  have  founded  a  perfect  church,  an  earthl}^  king- 
dom of  the  saints  ;  that  they  were  disappointed 
was  not  their  fault.  They  failed  as  all  men  fail 
who  attempt  the  impossible,  but  meanwhile  we 
cannot  say  that  Puritanism,  like  charity,  hopeth  all 
things,  endureth  all  things,  believeth  all  things. 


PURITANISM  243 

Puritanism  lives  still ;  and  so  long  as  human 
nature  remains  what  it  is,  it  will  live.  But  as  a 
system  it  has  largely  passed  away. 

The  good  that  its  leaders  did  for  the  political 
enfranchisement  of  men  remains  as  their  best  and 
enduring  monument. 

There  are  still  sects  that  put  a  ban  on  innocent 
pleasure  and  seem  to  be  at  war  with  God's  sun- 
shine and  all  that  makes  glad  the  heart  of  man  ; 
in  them  the  solemn  and  gloomy  Puritan  temper 
seems  still  to  live.  But  can  we  marvel  that  our 
people  have  become  weary  of  a  system  of  religion 
which  makes  them  think  of  their  Heavenly  Fa- 
ther far  otherwise  than  as  their  living  Father  and 
God? 

Oh,  how  infinitely  better,  more  natural,  and 
more  helpful  is  it  to  rejoice  in  the  glorious  broth- 
erhood of  the  Son  of  man,  who  came  eating  and 
drinking  and  entering  into  all  our  social  joys  and 
pleasures,  than  to  live  under  the  cold,  chilling 
effect  of  Puritanism,  as  if  we  were  wrapped  round 
about  with  the  grave-clothes  of  the  dead !  Let  us 
up  and  be  doing,  not  thinking  ourselves  better 
than  others,  not  thinking  life  itself  a  burden,  but 
thinking  of  it  as  an  inestimable  blessing  and  a 
noble  opportunity,  in    which   we    can    ourselves 


244  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

make  sure  of  an  eternal  inheritance  and  help  on 
our  neighbors  in  the  same  heavenly  road  we  are 
ourselves  travelling.  Yet  if  the  clergy  of  our 
Church  are  respected  to-day  for  their  office's  sake, 
let  them  cheerfully  acknowledge  that  for  this 
they  are  largely  indebted  to  Puritanism.  It  was 
indeed  Puritanism's  great  gift  to  the  Christian 
Church.  There  was,  however,  a  second  gift :  the 
essence  of  Puritanism  is  the  sense  of  individual 
responsibility.  Individualism  is  just  now  at  a 
discount.  Men  see  so  clearly  the  selfishness 
which  readily  attaches  to  it,  that  they  are  in  peril 
of  denying  its  immense  truth  and  importance. 
To  go  about  doing  good  is  a  realization  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  and  is  a  side  of  religion  im- 
mensely popular  just  now.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  man  stands 
alone  before  God,  alone  with  God,  as  though 
there  were  no  other  created  being  in  the  uni- 
verse ;  and  that  in  the  development  of  each  man's 
own  character  in  accordance  with  the  Divine 
laws,  lies  his  primary  and  lasting  obligation. 


XV. 


THE   CHURCH    OF   ENGLAND    IN   OUR 
TIMES 


XV. 


THE   CHURCH   OF    ENGLAND    IN    OUR 
TIMES 

"  Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a  crown  of 
life." — Rev.  ii.  ii. 

Our  present  subject  may  well  kindle  with  en- 
thusiasm the  spirit  of  every  Churchman,  for  we 
speak  of  the  work  accomplished  by  our  beloved 
Church  during  the  last  half  century  in  England. 
Triumphing  over  obstacles  that  seemed  well-nigh 
insurmountable,  "  the  little  one  has  become  a  thou- 
sand, and  a  small  one  a  strong  nation."  So  that 
of  her  we  can  truthfully  sing:  "Like  a  mighty 
army  moves  the  Church  of  God." 

But  many  and  grievous  were  the  dangers  that 
had  threatened  her.  There  was  a  time  when  she 
could  say  with  St.  Paul  that  she  was  '^  in  perils  of 
robbers,  in  perils  of  her  own  countrymen,  in  per- 
ils in  the  cit3%  in  perils  among  false  brethren." 
But  those  dangers  were  for  the  most  part  past- 
Others  indeed  of  a  different  kind  were  comino- 


248  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH    HISTORY 

upon  her,  for  she  had  become  prosperous.  She 
had  succeeded  in  her  mission.  She  had  nobly 
won  her  cause.  She  had  shown  her  Catholicity. 
She  had  made  good  her  claims  to  a  divine  origin. 
"  Fortune  and  victory  sat  on  her  helm."  And  in 
consequence,  the  temptations  which  overthrew 
the  prosperous  church  of  Laodicea  were  assailing 
her.  She  too  might  say  that  she  was  increased 
in  goods  and  had  grown  rich,  rich  in  men's  affec- 
tions and  rich  in  good  deeds.  It  remained,  there- 
fore, for  her  to  take  warning  from  the  fate  of 
the  Laodicean  Church,  lest  she  failed  of  the 
crown  of  life.  Meanwhile  the  Apocalyptic  com- 
mendation of  the  chief  of  the  churches  of  Asia 
INIinor  could  be  bestowed  upon  her :  ''  I  know 
thy  works,  and  thy  labor,  and  thy  patience,  and 
how  thou  canst  not  bear  them  which  are  evil; 
and  thou  hast  tried  them  which  say  they  are 
apostles,  and  are  not,  and  hast  found  them  liars : 
and  hast  borne,  and  hast  patience,  and  for  my 
name's  sake  hast  labored,  and  hast  not  fainted." 

But  if  we  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  this  cen- 
tury, there  were  no  signs  of  this  later  growth  and 
this  later  success.  Then  was  the  winter  of  her 
existence.  Hard  frozen  were  the  arteries  and 
veins  of  her  spiritual  life.     She  seemed  wrapped 


THE   CHURCH   OF   ENGLAND   IN   OUR   TIMES      249 

ill  the  cold,  icy,  embrace  of  death.  Many  indeed 
were  asking  whether  she  would  ever  live  again, 
whether  life  still  really  dwelt  in  that  motionless 
body. 

At  the  building  of  the  second  Temple  of  the 
Jewish  Church,  many  of  the  priests  and  Levites 
and  chief  of  the  fathers  who  were  ancient  men 
wept  with  a  loud  voice  when  they  remembered  the 
glory  of  the  former  house,  and  contrasted  it  with 
what  they  then  saw.  And  there  must  have  been 
many  in  the  English  Church  who  were  ready  to 
weep  in  like  manner  as  they  saw  the  condition  of 
their  spiritual  Mother.  That  condition  was  truly 
appalling.  The  clergy  as  a  class  had  no  concep- 
tion of  the  dignity  of  their  office.  Some  of  them, 
Dean  Church  tells  us  in  his  story  of  the  Oxford 
movement,  1833-45,  were  highly  cultivated,  be- 
nevolent men,  whose  lives  were  governed  by  an 
unfaltering  piety.  But  there  were  members  of 
the  clerical  order  who  were  mere  hunters  after 
preferment.  Probably  on  the  whole  the  clergy 
were  kind  and  helpful  and  sociable,  like  Gold- 
smith's Vicar  of  Wakefield,  but  full  of  zeal  for  the 
Church  they  were  not.  At  the  country  dinners 
they  would  say  some  pleasant  things  about  the 
Church,  when  they  responded  to  the  usual  toast 


250  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  Church  and  State,  and  they  would  wish  her  all 
prosperity  as  they  honored  the  toast  in  cham- 
pagne or  madeira.  But  there  the  matter  ended. 
The  parish  churches  were  fast  falling  into  ruin. 
Dirt  and  damp  reigned  supreme.  The  sparrow 
had  in  very  truth  found  her  a  house,  and  the 
swallow  a  nest  where  she  could  lay  her  young, 
even  the  altars  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  our  King 
and  our  God,  and  through  the  broken  windows 
they  came  and  went  unhindered.  The  grave- 
yards were  little  better  than  the  village  common. 
Services  were  held  on  Sundays,  but  they  were 
poor,  dull,  lifeless  affairs,  and  they  harmonized 
well  with  the  unkept  graveyard  and  the  neglected 
church.  It  was  all  of  a  piece — churches  and  ser- 
vices, clergy  and  congregations,  they  were  all 
alike  in  this,  that  they  seemed  drawing  to  an  end. 
The  hand  of  death  was  upon  them  all. 

When  the  century  opened,  it  wanted  apparent- 
ly but  a  few  years  and  the  National  Church 
would  be  as  extinct  as  the  dodo,  and  the  sons  of 
that  Church,  like  the  mound-builders  of  Ohio,  a 
vanished  race.  "  The  Church,  as  it  now  stands,*' 
wrote  Arnold,  one  of  the  Oxford  scholars  in  1832, 
"  no  human  power  can  save."  "  The  Church," 
wrote  Whatelv,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Dub- 


THE    CHURCH    OF    ENGLAND    IN    OUR   TIMES      25 1 

lin,  "  has  been  for  one  hundred  years  without  a 
government,  and  in  such  a  stormy  season  it  will 
not  go  on  much  longer  without  a  rudder."  "  If 
I  thought  that  we  could  stand  ten  or  fifteen  years 
as  we  are,  I  should  have  little  fear,"  wrote  Hugh 
James  Rose. 

And  had  it  come  to  this  ?  Was  the  mother  of 
mighty  children,  the  spiritual  mother  of  Hooker 
and  Wilson,  of  Andrews,  Jeremy  Taylor,  and 
Ken,  of  Laud  and  Parker,  of  Hugh  of  Lincoln 
and  William  of  Wykeham,  of  St.  Chad  of  Lich- 
field and  St.  Aidan  of  Lindisfarne,  thus  to  die  ? 
She  that  alone  of  all  the  churches  of  the  West 
had  fought  successfully  her  battle  for  indepen- 
dence against  the  full  noontide  power  of  the  pa- 
pal court ;  she  that  had  cared  not  for  the  spir- 
itual thunders  of  Hildebrand  or  of  Innocent  III., 
and  had  successfully  turned  the  carnal  weap- 
ons of  Sixtus  V.  against  himself ;  she  that  had 
refused  at  the  bidding  of  the  Puritans  to  fling 
away  her  Catholic  heritage,  and  had  suffered  in 
consequence  as  she  and  hers  had  never  done 
since  the  days  of  Diocletian  —  had  she  at  last 
come  to  the  end  of  her  career,  and  was  she  now 
to  lie  down  and  die  ?  God  forbid.  "  At  evening 
time  it  shall  be  light."     False  friends  and  open 


252  LECTURES   ON    CHURCH   HISTORY 

foes  had  brought  her  very  low.  Persecuted  she 
had  been,  but  not  forsaken  ;  cast  down,  but  not 
destroyed.  She  had  clung  to  her  apostolic  heri- 
tage. She  had  preserved  her  charter.  She  had 
kept  the  faith.  She  had  been  faithful  unto  death. 
Notwithstanding  all  she  had  suffered,  she  was 
sacramental  still ;  she  was  sacerdotal  still ;  she 
was  Episcopal  still ;  she  was  Catholic  still.  And 
because  she  had  been  faithful,  God,  even  our  own 
God,  had  given  her  His  blessing.  It  was  when 
the  Church  was  weakest  there  came  from  God 
that  force  known  as  the  Oxford  movement,  or 
the  Catholic  revival.  We  say  from  God.  Re- 
membering what  that  movement  was,  we  dare 
not  say  less  than  this.  ''  The  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth,  and  thou  canst  not  tell  whence  it 
cometh  or  whither  it  goeth  ;  so  is  every  one  that 
is  born  of  the  Spirit."  So  was  it  with  the  Oxford 
movement.  Good  men  had  been  looking  out 
over  the  wide  field  of  the  English  Church's  past, 
and  as  they  looked  their  spirits  burned  within 
them,  for  they  felt  that  the  old  Church  deserved  a 
better  fate  than  that  which  threatened  her,  and 
the  Spirit  bade  them  speak,  and  preach,  and  write, 
and  teach  that  the  old  Church  should  not  die  but 
live  and  declare  the  works  of  the  Lord.     Dilapi- 


THE    CHURCH    OF   ENGLAND    IN   OUR   TIMES      253 

dated  buildings  there  might  be,  careless  cler- 
gy, lukewarm  congregations  there  might  be,  nay 
worse,  unfaithful  sons  proposing  that  the  Church 
should  unite  with  the  sects,  on  the  sects'  own 
ground ;  but  given  ten  or  fifteen  years  they 
would  not  despair  of  the  old  Church.  It  would 
yet  bear  fruit  in  its  old  age. 

Those  were  the  days  when  Churchmen  had 
come  to  take  their  knowledge  of  their  own  his- 
tor}^  and  to  receive  their  docti'ines  and  ceremo- 
nies of  religion  from  their  enemies.  Because  Puri- 
tans discarded  the  surplice  and  the  Prayer  Book, 
and  spoke  of  them  contemptuously  as  relics  of 
Baalism,  they  were  ready  to  discard  both  Prayer 
Book  and  surplice.  Because  the  lawyers  and  pol- 
iticians spoke  of  the  Church  as  ''  the  Establish- 
ment," and  the  Evangelicals-  regarded  it  as  an 
invisible  and  mystical  body,  Nonconformists  as 
an  aggregate  of  separate  congregations,  the  Eras- 
tians  as  a  Parliamentary  creature  of  the  Refor- 
mation, and  the  Roman  Catholics  as  a  legalized 
schism,  they  were  ready  to  believe  one  and  all  of 
them,  and  to  teach  their  children  the  same. 

At  such  a  time,  then,  the  leaders  of  the  Catholic 
revival  appeared,  and  their  teaching  was  unmis- 
takably clear ;   the  Church   of  England   was  the 


254  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

one  historic,  uninterrupted  Church,  than  which 
historically  there  could  be  no  other  locally  in 
England.  They  pointed  men  to  the  creed  which 
bade  them  say,  ''  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church,"  and  the  movement  began.  And  equal- 
ly plainly  did  they  speak  of  what  that  Church 
taught.  Calvinism  was  no  scriptural  doctrine, 
but  only  a  monstrous  perversion  of  it.  Nor  was 
the  law  of  her  ritual  to  be  found  enshrined  in 
Puritan  sentiment  or  in  Anglican  neglect,  but 
in  the  Church's  own  Book  of  Common  Prayer, 
at  once  her  book  of  devotion  and  her  code  of 
laws. 

Between  such  teaching  as  this  and  what  the 
Churchmen  of  that  day  had  previously  heard, 
there  was  a  vast  interval.  But  it  took  time  to  be 
widely  spread.  At  first  the  Bishop  in  his  palace 
heard  of  it,  and  feared  that  it  would  lead  the 
Church  into  trouble  ;  or  the  country  Rector  talked 
it  over  with  the  squire  and  they  both  liked  it  not. 
But  the  day  soon  came  when  it  was  the  one  sub- 
ject of  conversation  all  through  the  land,  and  for 
a  time  it  seemed  as  if  it  had  turned  the  world  up- 
side down.  We  who  are  living  in  the  midst  of 
this  movement,  who  have  felt  its  power  and  have 
been   carried   forward   by   it,   have   perhaps   not 


THE   CHURCH   OF   ENGLAND    IN   OUR   TIMES      255 

been  able  to  accurately  gauge  its  full  importance 
as  a  religious  force.  Yet  there  never  has  been  a 
religious  movement  that  exercised  greater  influ- 
ence. Some  day  it  will  undoubtedly  come  to  be 
recognized  as  one  of  the  most  important  of  all 
forces  which  have  dominated  this  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. 

Yet  such  teaching  could  not  but  produce  ex- 
citement in  an  age  ignorant  of  the  history  and 
doctrines  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  storm 
did  come,  and  it  threatened  to  sweep  all  before  it. 
Terms  of  reproach  were  flung  broadcast,  neither 
learning,  nor  piety,  nor  aught  else  being  a  pro- 
tection. A  strange  excess  of  excitenaent  held  pos- 
session of  men  and  deprived  them  of  their  rea- 
son and  judgment.  The  leaders  of  the  movement 
that  had  for  its  object  the  welfare  of  the  Church 
were  called  in  turn  Puseyites,  children  of  the 
mist,  veiled  prophets,  Oxford  heretics,  Jesuits  in 
disguise,  agents  of  Satan,  snakes  in  the  grass, 
and  other  such  names.  Some  idea  of  the  fren- 
zy which  had  seized  men  may  be  had  from  the 
treatment  meted  out  to  the  beautiful  "  Christian 
Year "  of  John  Keble.  Before  the  "  Christian 
Year "  was  published,  the  friends  of  Keble  en- 
deavored to  dissuade  him  from  giving  it  to  the 


256  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH    HISTORY 

world,  on  the  ground  that  he  would  be  mistaken 
for  a  Methodist !  But  it  was  published,  and,  won- 
derful to  tell,  it  was  publicly  burned  at  Oxford  as 
the  work  of  one  of  these  Jesuits  in  disguise,  one 
of  these  snakes  in  the  grass  who  polluted  the 
sacred  edifice  of  the  Church  and  left  their  slime 
about  her  altars  ! 

Whence  all  this  antagonism,  this  furor  and 
wild  excitement?  To  what  cause  must  we  as- 
cribe it  ?  Ah,  the  Puritans'  work  had  been  well 
done.  Puritanism,  though  it  had  passed  away  as 
a  system,  had  left  some  of  its  evil  fruits  behind  it. 
Unreasoning  hatred  of  ever}^  Catholic  usage  was 
one  of  the  marks  of  that  peculiar  system  of  relig- 
ion, and  many  who  were  not  Puritans  but  Anglican 
Churchmen  had  come  to  share  this  feeling,  and 
so  the  first  movement  in  the  direction  of  a  more 
implicit  obedience  to  the  plain  teaching  of  the 
Prayer  Book  was  met  on  every  side  with  loud 
cries  of  ''  No  Popery  !  "  The  nation  took  fright, 
nay,  a  panic  set  in  ;  riots  ensued  and  blood- 
shed was  threatened.  Even  the  Bishops  became 
alarmed,  and  they  issued  their  episcopal  fulmi- 
nations  against  the  new  teachings  as  subverting 
the  principles  of  the  Reformation.  One  of  these, 
more   emphatic  in  his  language  than   his   breth- 


THE   CHURCH    OF    ENGLAND   IN   OUR   TIMES      25/ 

rcn,  declared  the  new  teaching  to  be  '^  the  master- 
piece of  Satan." 

And  what  do  you  suppose  all  this  was  about? 
Only  about  the  decorations  of  churches  and  the 
establishment  of  choral  services,  preaching  in  a 
surplice  and  having  credence  tables,  and  teaching 
that  the  Anglican  Church  was  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church  for  Anglicans.  But  law  was  on  the  side 
of  the  Oxford  teachers  as  well  as  Catholic  cus- 
tom. Those  teachers  were  the  foremost  scholars 
of  the  day,  and  the  names  of  more  than  one  of 
them  will  live  in  history.  John  Keble — a  schol- 
ar and  a  poet — was  the  real  author,  under  God, 
of  the  movement,  which  had  for  leaders  Hugh 
James  Rose,  Richard  Hurrell  Froude,  and  Ed- 
ward Bouverie  Pusey.  These  were  they  who, 
through  good  report  and  ill,  were  leading  the 
Church  to  know  herself  and  her  own  power.  Did 
men  speak  of  doctrine,  they  pointed  to  the  offices 
of  the  Prayer  Book  ;  did  they  find  fault  with  cer- 
emonies, they  pointed  to  the  ornaments  rubric  at 
the  very  front  of  the  Service  for  Morning  Pray- 
er: 

"  And  here  it  is  to  be  noted   that  such   ornaments  of  the 
Church  and  of  the  ministers  thereof  at  all  times  of  their  minis- 
tration shall  be  retained  and  be  in  use,  as  were  in  this  Church 
17 


25S  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

of  England,  by  the  authority  of  Parliament,  in  the  second  year 
of  the  reign  of  King  Edward  the  Vlth." 

Can  any  rule  be  plainer  ?  Is  anyone  in  doubt 
as  to  what  a  clergyman  should  wear  in  the  time 
of  divine  service,  or  how  the  church  should  ap- 
pear, let  him  get  a  copy  of  the  first  Prayer  Book 
of  Edward  and  he  need  doubt  no  longer.  He 
may,  indeed,  prefer  a  Geneva  gown,  and  he  may 
look  upon  an  altar  cross  as  an  abomination,  but 
if  he  does  his  feelings  will  receive  a  shock  when 
he  finds  that  the  Prayer  Book  speaks  not  of  Ge- 
neva gowns,  nor  does  its  ban  rest  upon  flowers 
and  altar  crosses. 

Yet  such  was  the  panic  that  had  seized  the 
public  mind,  that  men  whose  only  crime  w^as  obe- 
dience to  this  plain  law  were  thrown  into  prison. 
No  greater  mistake  than  this  could   have   been 

made, 

"  Since  to  persecute 
Makes  a  faith  more  hated." 

We  call  to  mind  the  case  of  one  of  these  im- 
prisoned clerg}^  He  had  chosen  to  work  in  a 
poor  and  wretched  part  of  the  Diocese  of  Man- 
chester and  had  literally  given  himself  for  it.  He 
had  gone  to  the  homes  of  the  very  poor  and  had 


THE   CHURCH   OF   ENGLAND   IN   OUR   TIMES      259 

gathered  them  around  him  as  none  had  ever 
done  there  before.  He  had  filled  his  church.  He 
had  spoken  to  them  of  Jesus  and  bade  them  lead 
holy,  self-denying  lives.  True,  he  was  "  a  Ritual- 
ist," as  the  phrase  goes,  but  by  bright  services 
he  said  that  he  had  helped  his  poor  people  to 
realize  something  of  the  beauty  of  holiness  and 
to  love  the  Church  of  God.  But  he  was  "  a  snake 
in  the  grass,"  "a  Jesuit  in  disguise,"  and  so  they 
tore  him  from  his  poor  people  and  thrust  him 
into  jail  and  kept  him  there  till,  bereft  of  his  par- 
ish, and  with  failing  health,  they  opened  the 
doors  and  let  him  go. 

My  brethren,  it  was  said  of  Christopher  Wren, 
''  If  you  would  seek  his  monument,  look  around." 
We  may  say  the  same  of  the  Oxford  movement. 
Look  around.  The  day  when  clergy  were  im- 
prisoned for  conscience'  sake  is  past  and  gone. 
But  their  work  remains.  Is  there  a  church  in 
this  whole  American  land  of  ours  that  has  not 
felt  the  power  of  this  movement  and  has  not 
been  influenced  by  it  ?  We  doubt  if  there  be  one. 
The  reign  of  slovenliness  is  over.  Restored 
churches,  reverent  and  large  congregations,  in- 
creased interest  in  religion,  tell  their  own  tale. 
In  the  days  since  the  Oxford  movement  took  its 


260  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

rise,  over  $250,000,000  have  been  spent  in  England 
alone  on  the  single  item  of  church-building  res- 
toration, whilst  over  four  thousand  new  churches 
have  been  built  to  meet  the  spiritual  demands  of 
our  age. 

We  shall  never  forget  a  procession  of  the  fa- 
thers of  the  Church  which  we  once  saw  in  Canter- 
bury Cathedral.  Many  processions  have  we  seen 
since,  but  none  like  unto  that.  It  made  a  man 
proud  of  belonging  to  a  Church  that  could  ac- 
complish it.  Choristers  and  clergy.  Bishops  and 
Archbishops,  their  number  seemed  endless  as  they 
wended  their  way  through  the  long  aisles  of  Can- 
terbury Cathedral,  up  to  the  altar  steps,  where 
good  old  Archbishop  Tait,  in  a  few  touching,  dig- 
nified words,  welcomed  them  ;  he  who  ''  was  as 
good  a  man  as  ever  trod  in  shoe-leather,  mighty 
good  to  the  poor,  with  a  face  like  a  benediction." 
Then  came  the  sermon.  Our  own  Bishop  Stev- 
ens, of  Pennsylvania,  now  gone  to  rest,  was  the 
preacher.  His  text  we  well  remember  :  ''  Who  is 
this  that  cometh  up  from  the  wilderness  leaning 
on  her  beloved."  From  all  lands  and  from  all  na- 
tions the  Bishops  had  come.  Daughter  churches, 
sister  churches  were  all  represented  there.  It  was 
an  inspiring  spectacle,  and  the  preacher  spcke  as 


THE   CHURCH   OF   ENGLAND    IN    OUR  TIMES      261 

one  inspired  by  the  splendor  of  the  scene  before 
him.  The  Church  was  the  Bride  of  Christ  and 
she  it  was  who,  in  the  persons  of  those  Bishops, 
had  come  up  from  the  wilderness  leaning  on  her 
beloved  ! 

A  greater  meeting  has  taken  place  since  in  the 
same  city  and  under  the  same  conditions.  One 
hundred  and  forty-five  Bishops  came  together  to 
tell  the  story  of  their  work,  and  to  learn  that  God 
had  blessed  them  all.  Oh,  mighty  Spirit  of  God ! 
He  had  bidden  the  Oxford  teachers,  like  the  old 
Hebrew  prophet,  breathe  upon  the  dry  bones  in 
the  open  valley ;  they  had  done  so,  and  there  had 
arisen  and  stood  upright  upon  their  feet  an  ex- 
ceeding great  army.  The  Church  had  indeed 
come  up  from  the  wilderness  leaning  on  her  Be- 
loved. 


XVI. 

AMERICA,  THE   HERITAGE   OF   OUR 
CHURCH 


XVI. 

AMERICA,  THE   HERITAGE  OF  OUR 
CHURCH 

"  Arise,  walk  through  the  land  in  the  length  of  it  and  in  the 
breadth  of  it ;  for  I  will  give  it  unto  thee." — Gen.  xiii.  17. 

In  the  early  years  of  this  century  there  gradu- 
ated from  the  University  of  North  Carolina  a 
young  rnan,  James  Hervey  Otey  by  name,  whose 
lot  it  was  not  only  to  be  the  first  Priest  of  the 
Church  settled  in  Tennessee,  but  to  be  also  its 
first  Bishop.  After  years  of  laborious  efforts  to 
promote  the  cause  of  Christ  and  to  provide  for 
the  religious  education  of  the  people  among 
whom  he  lived,  and  from  whom,  in  recognition 
of  his  apostolic  labors,  he  received  the  title  of 
''  The  Good  Bishop,"  he  was  gathered  unto  his 
fathers  in  peace,  having  the  testimony  of  a  good 
conscience  and  in  the  communion  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church.  But  ere  he  died  he  gave  this 
charge  to  those  around  him  :  "  Place  none  other 
inscription  upon   my  tombstone  than  this:  'The 


266  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

first  Bishop  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  Tennes- 
see.' " 

I  can  well  believe  that  the  average  Tennesseean, 
standing  for  the  first  time  by  the  grave  of  the 
pioneer  Bishop,  would  exclaim  :  ^'  What  is  this 
that  is  on  this  stone  :  '  First  Bishop  of  the  Catholic 
Church  ? '  Stranger,  don't  you  think  that  the 
carver  of  this  stone  has  made  a  mistake  ?  Bishop 
Otey  didn't  belong  to  those  Catholics  ;  he  was 
one  of  ourselves;  a  Bishop  of  our  own,  and  a 
mighty  fine  man  he  was,  too.  He  was  a'  good, 
sound  Protestant,  every  inch  of  him,  and  he  stood 
six  feet  three  inches  in  his  stocking  feet.  And 
yet  this  stone  says  :  '  First  Bishop  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church  in  Tennessee.' " 

Brethren,  there  are  sermons  in  stones  as  well 
as  in  trees  and  running  brooks,  and  there  is  one 
here.  Bishop  Otey  zuas  a  Catholic  Bishop,  and 
yet  he  was  a  Protestant,  too.  That  very  stone 
proclaims  his  Protestantism  and  his  Catholicity. 
By  it  he  being  dead  yet  speaketh.  It  is  his  pro- 
test, graven  in  solid  rock,  against  all  forgetfulness 
of  our  apostolic  heritage.  At  one  and  the  same 
time  and  in  one  and  the  same  words,  it  asserts 
and  it  protests.  And  this  is  the  character  of 
true  Catholicitv,  which  is  ever  the  assertion  of 


AMERICA,  THE   HERITAGE   OF   OUR   CHURCH      267 

that  which  is  true,  the  denial  of  that  which  is 
false. 

The  Anglican  Church  to-day,  while  protesting 
against  all  errors,  proudly  claims  that  her  Bishops 
are  of  the  Catholic  Church  ;  and  her  claim  is 
just.  But,  some  may  ask,  how  do  we  know  that 
it  is  just?  Let  us  try  to  answer  that  question 
now. 

In  this  country  there  are  two  great  bodies  of 
Christians  which  call  themselves  ''  Catholic,"  but 
of  only  one  of  them  is  the  word  commonly  used. 
Yet  of  that  one  it  is  so  frequently  used  nowa- 
days that  the  terms  ''  Catholic  Priest,"  "  Catholic 
Church,"  are  popularly  taken  to  refer  only  to  that 
one  body.  It  is  not  easy  to  explain  how  this  us- 
age became  so  general,  since  it  is  not  due  to  any 
formal  assertion  of  her  exclusive  right  to  its  use 
on  the  part  of  that  particular  Church  herself.  In 
her  official  documents  she  makes  no  such  claim. 
We  do  not  meet  with  it  in  the  decrees  of  her 
Councils :  there  we  read,  not  of  the  "  Catholic 
Church,"  but  of  the  ''  Holy  Roman  Church,"  or 
at  best  the  ''  Holy  Roman  Catholic  Church." 

Nay  more :  it  has  not  been  the  habit  of  that 
Church  in  past  time,  in  the  ordinary  practice  and 
daily  business  of  life,  thus  to  arrogate  to  her  own 


268  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

exclusive  use  this  word  descriptive  of  the  whole 
Church  ;  of  this  fact  an}-  one  may  be  a  witness. 
Just  opposite  Archbishop  Corrigan's  residence  in 
New  York  there  is  a  large  building  with  plain 
black  letters  of  iron  over  the  entrance  gateway 
telling  you  it  is  "  The  Roman  Catholic  Orphan- 
age/' and  their  Archbishop  in  Baltimore  is  ex- 
pressly styled  (in  his  incorporation)  as  the  Roman 
Catholic  Archbishop  of  Baltimore.  But  the  fact 
remains  all  the  same  that  this  Church  alone  is 
popularl}^  spoken  of  as  *'  Catholic." 

The  other  body  which  calls  itself  Catholic  is 
our  own  Church,  commonly  styled  the  "  Protes- 
tant Episcopal,"  which  name,  however,  is  mere- 
ly the  civil  name  of  our  local  Church.  In  the 
Creeds  we  may  see  her  true  ecclesiastical  name 
— she  is  the  Ho/y  CatJwlic  and  Apostolic  CJnn'ch. 
We  have,  then,  these  two  churches,  both  claim- 
ing to  represent  Catholic  Christianity.  Now  the 
body  which  can  alone  make  good  this  claim  is 
that  of  which  we  are  members.  She  is  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  and  locally  there  can  be  no  other 
here.  As  applied  to  another,  the  term  is  a  mis- 
nomer and  is  misleading.  To  our  Church,  and 
not  to  another,  God  has  given  this  land,  saying, 
as  He  said  to  Abraham  at  Bethel,  '*  Arise,  walk 


AMERICA,  THE   HERITAGE   OF   OUR   CHURCH      269 

through  the  land  in  the  length  of  it  and  in  the 
breadth  of  it,  for  I  will  give  it  unto  thee." 

First.  Our  Anglican  Church  is  the  Church  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  and  as  such  is  rightfully 
supreme  here.  God  has  clearly  ordained  that 
His  Church  shall  spread  on  national  lines.  Now 
this  country  was  long  ago  taken  possession  of  by 
men  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  The  place  where 
they  dwelt  on  the  other  side  of  the  sea  was  too 
strait  for  them,  and  they  came  seeking  a  larger 
field  for  their  energies  and  a  roomier  dwelling- 
place  ;  they  acquired  this  land  as  men  have  ever 
acquired  new  territories,  by  their  sword  and  by 
their  bow.  Theirs  was  the  right  of  conquest. 
When  King  John  in  mediaeval  times  in  England 
challenged  the  rights  of  the  barons  to  the  lands 
they  claimed,  a  hundred  swords  flew  out  of  their 
scabbards  and  strong  voices  forthwith  declared  : 
''  By  these  we  won  them,  and  by  these  we  will 
maintain  them  !  "  This  country,  too,  was  won, 
not  by  kings*  grants,  written  on  parchment,  but 
by  force  of  arms.  Only  thus  did  the  red  men  re- 
treat before  the  pale  face,  and  the  birch-bark  tent 
of  the  savage  give  place  to  the  rude  cabin  of  the 
settler.     It  is  thus  that 

"  Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way." 


2/0  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

Was  it  not  right  ?  Was  it  not  natural  ?  Was  it 
not  demanded  that  the  Church  of  the  settlers 
should  accompany  the  settlers  ?  Our  Church  is, 
therefore,  the  Church  of  those  who  have  been 
and  still  are  the  makers  of  America,  and  as  such 
she  is  the  true  Catholic  Church  of  this  land. 

But,  secondly,  she  was  the  first  here.  She  first 
laid  the  foundation  of  Christianity  in  this  land. 
The  first  Christian  service  here  held,  the  first 
white  child  baptized,  the  first  Eucharist  cele- 
brated, the  first  Bishop  consecrated,  were  all  by 
her.  Let  her  children  know  this,  if  others  will 
not.  Let  them  rejoice  in  the  light,  even  if  others 
are  still  in  darkness.  She  first  carried  Christ's 
banner  in  this  Western  world.  Let  us  see  how 
this  came  about. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  it  had  become  the 
fashion  for  the  younger  men 

"  To  seek  preferment  out — 
Some  to  the  wars,  to  try  their  fortune  there, 
Some  to  discover  islands  far  away." 

John  Cabot  was  one  of  these,  who,  under  the 
auspices  of  King  Henry  VIL,  on  the  Feast  of 
St.  John  the  Baptist,  1497,  first  discovered  the 
North  American  Continent,  and  took  possession 
in  the  name  of  England. 


AMERICA,  THE  HERITAGE  OF  OUR  CHURCH  27 1 

But  not  till  the  Reformation  had  been  accom- 
plished was  England  actually  free  to  enter  upon 
the  pathway  of  discovery  and  settlement.  Then, 
many  an  expedition  was  fitted  out  and  sailed 
for  the  distant  West.  Diverse  were  the  motives 
of  the  voyagers.  Some  thought  most  of  gold  ; 
some  of  the  souls  of  men  ;  but  whatever  the  mo- 
tive, every  English  ship  carried  its  Chaplain. 
Church  and  State  were  so  allied  together  then 
that  side  by  side  with  a  desire  to  extend  com- 
merce went  a  desire  to  bring  the  heathen  into 
the  Christian  fold.  It  would  have  been  strange 
had  it  not  been  so,  for  at  that  time  religion  filled 
a  large  space  in  human  life.  That  was  the  day 
of  great  controversies  ;  all  felt  religion's  force. 
When,  therefore,  the  Spaniard,  in  the  wake  of 
Columbus,  was  going  to  his  possessions  in  the 
West  Indies,  carrying  with  him  the  gentle  appli- 
ances of  the  Inquisition  to  quicken  the  Indians' 
appreciation  of  the  beauties  of  the  Christian  faith, 
the  Englishman  was  sailing  where  Cabot  had 
shown  the  way,  from  the  rocky  coasts  of  Labra- 
dor to  the  Gulf-washed  shores  of  Florida,  bearing 
with  him  his  Chaplain  and  his  Prayer  Book. 

Thus,  e.g.,  did  the  fleet  of  fifteen  ships  which 
left  Harwich  on    May  31,    1578,  under  the  com- 


272  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

mand  of  Martin  Frobisher,  carry  one  Maister 
Wolfall,  a  learned  man,  appointed  by  Her  Majes- 
ty's Council  to  be  their  Minister.  This  good 
man,  among  the  ice-fields  of  the  north,  held  the 
first  missionary  service  of  the  Reformed  Church 
of  Eno^land.  Thus  does  the  record  run :  "  Mais- 
ter  Wolfall  on  Winter's  Furnace  preached  a  God- 
ly sermon,  which  being  ended,  he  celebrated  also 
a  Communion  upon  the  land,  at  the  partaking 
whereof  was  the  Captain  of  the  Anne  Francis  and 
many  other  gentlemen  and  soldiers  with  him. 
The  celebration  of  the  Divine  Mystery  was  the 
first  sign,  seal,  and  confirmation  of  Christ's  name, 
death,  and  passion  ever  known  in  these  quarters." 
While  this  solemn  service  was  being  held  on 
the  northeastern  coast,  a  similar  service  was 
being  held  on  the  Pacific,  under  the  famous  Sir 
Francis  Drake.  On  the  north  Californian  coast 
in  1579,  three-quarters  of  a  century  after  Cabot 
had  landed  on  the  eastern  shores,  Francis  Fletch- 
er, the  Chaplain,  in  the  presence  of  Drake's  crew 
and  the  natives,  besought  God  in  the  Church's 
prayers  to  reveal  Himself  to  the  idolaters  around 
them,  and  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  knowledge  of 
Him  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  salvation  of  the 
Gentiles. 


AMERICA,  THE   HERITAGE   OF   OUR   CHURCH      2/3 

It  was  thus  that  the  Anglican  Church  was  then 
seeking  to  spread  Plis  dominion  from  sea  to  sea. 
It  was  thus  that  within  what  is  now  the  territory 
of  these  United  States,  the  Church's  Prayer  Book 
was  first  used.  Well  may  the  Celtic  cross  which 
has  lately  been  erected  in  sight  of  the  Pacific  on 
a  spot  so  sacred  to  Catholic  Churchmen  lift  up 
itself  in  proud  pre-eminence ;  for  there,  in  the 
summer  of  1579,  the  prayers  of  the  Anglican 
Church  were  the  first  prayers  to  be  offered  in  all 
this  wide  land. 

Thus  Cabot  on  the  east  and  Drake  on  the  west 
had  both  claimed  this  new  world  for  Anglican 
Christianity,  and  had  planted  the  standard  of  the 
cross  in  the  sight  of  wondering  natives ;  but 
they  made  no  permanent  settlement.  They  came 
and  they  returned  to  tell  the  story  of  their  wan- 
derings in  their  fatherland.  When  other  men 
followed  them,  not  for  disQovery  but  for  settle- 
ment, they  were  men  of  a  like  fajth  with  Cabot 
and  Drake,  who  made  their  new  home  as  nearly 
as  they  could  like  the  old  one  across  the  se^.  At 
Roanoke  Island  in  Virginia  lived  the  first-fruits 
of  those  sixty  odd  millions  of  people  who  now  in- 
habit this  land.     Here  Manteo,   the  first  Indian 

convert  of  our  Church,  was  baptized  ;  here  too, 
18 


2/4  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

was  baptized  Virginia  Dare,  grand-daughter  of 
the  governor,  and  the  first  child  of  white  parents 
born  in  the  New  World.  But  the  infant  settle- 
ment was  doomed  to  extinction.  An  Indian  mas- 
sacre came,  and  with  it  the  end  of  Roanoke  Col- 
ony. 

Another  settlement  was,  however,  soon  made  at 
Jamestown,  where  the  good  Anglican  priest,  Al- 
exander Whittaker,  earned  the  title  of  ''  Apostle 
to  the  Indians  ;  "  and  there  the  seed  took  final 
root.  The  Church  there  became  so  strong  that 
even  the  storms  which  beat  upon  the  old  Church 
across  the  seas  did  not  disturb  her.  Whilst  the 
Puritans  under  Cromwell  were  breaking  down 
rood  screens  and  tearing  up  surplices,  burning 
Prayer  Books  and  cutting  off  Bishops'  heads,  she 
was  going  on  the  even  tenor  of  her  way,  for 
Church  and  State  were  firm  friends  in  Virginia. 

But  some  may  say,  "  Oh,  yes,  we  grant  that  in 
Virginia  the  Anglican  Church  was  there  from  the 
first,  but  what  have  you  to  say  about  Maryland  ? 
Was  ftot  Maryland  first  settled  by  Roman  Catho- 
lics, just  as  Virginia  had  been  by  Anglo-Catho- 
lics ?  "  Well,  that  Maryland  was  settled  under  a 
Roman  Catholic  baron  we  have  been  told  from 
childhood  ;    but  it  was  only   so  in  legal  fiction. 


AMERICA,  THE   HERITAGE   OF   OUR    CHURCH      2/5 

In  plain,  honest  history,  Maryland  was  like  Vir- 
ginia, a  colony  of  English  Churchmen,  and  was 
never  a  formal  settlement  of  Roman  Catholics 
merely,  neither  were  the  Roman  Catholics  ever  a 
majority  here.  The  fact  is  that  Maryland  was  first 
settled  from  Virginia  between  the  years  1624  and 
1628;  and  on  Kent  Island  there  was  early  a  com- 
munity strong  enough  to  maintain  its  own  Rec- 
tor, the  Rev.  William  James,  who  ministered  to 
his  flock  before  any  Romanist  ever  saw  Maryland. 
But  whence  has  this  error  arisen  ?  In  this 
way :  Cecilius  Calvert,  the  second  Lord  Balti- 
more, who  received  a  grant  of  eight  millions  of 
acres  from  King  Charles,  happened  to  be  a  Ro- 
man Catholic.  This  grant  was  made  on  June  16, 
1632  ;  and  in  1633-1634  Cecilius,  Lord  Baltimore, 
sent  his  brother  Leonard  Calvert  to  take  posses- 
sion as  governor  of  the  lands  thereby  granted. 
With  Leonard  Calvert  there  came  two  hundred 
men,  and  it  is  fondly  assumed  that  these  were 
Roman  Catholics,  but  on  what  ground  ?  Be- 
cause the  Calverts  were  Roman  Catholic?  As 
well  might  one  say  that  they  were  all  peers  of 
Ireland  because  the  Lord  Baltimore  was  such  a 
peer,  or  that  they  all  bore  the  name  of  Calvert 
because   he  bore  that   name.     The  majority,  the 


276  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

great  majority  of  those  early  settlers  were  cer- 
tainly not  Roman  Catholics.  They  were  Protes- 
tants, or  as  they  called  themselves,  "  Protestant 
Catholics."  Father  White,  the  Jesuit,  tells  us 
that  at  the  Christmas  festival,  which  they  spent 
in  the  West  Indies,  on  their  Avay  out  from  Eng-- 
land,  some  of  them  drank  so  immoderately  of  the 
wine  there  that  about  thirty  of  the  number  were 
seized  with  fever  the  next  day  and  twelve  of 
them  died,  two  being  Catholics.  Observe,  not  the 
twelve,  but  only  two  of  them.  Was  not  this  the 
proportion  the  Romanists  bore  to  the  Avhole  num- 
ber? 

Let  any  one  to-da}^  travel  through  southern 
Maryland  and  he  will  find  abundant  evidences 
of  the  fact  that  English  Churchmen  were  ever 
the  stronger  party.  Before  1692,  when  the  coun- 
try was  divided  into  parishes,  there  were  eight 
large  churches,  of  one  of  which  the  writer  had 
once  the  privilege  for  some  time  to  be  the  Rec- 
tor ;  and  even  to-day  in  the  very  landing-place  of 
the  original  settlers  at  St.  Mar3^'s  City,  an  Angli- 
can church  alone  is  to  be  seen — even  the  cross  re- 
cently erected  by  the  State,  which  celebrates  the 
arrival  of  Governor  Leonard  Calvert,  stands  in 
the  churchyard  of  our  own  St.  Mary's  Church. 


AMERICA,  THE    HERITAGE   OF   OUR   CHURCH      277 

It  is  the  same  throughout  this  whole  country. 
The  Anglican  Church  was  here  first  and  has  ever 
regarded  herself  as  the  Church  of  the  people,  has 
ever  heard  God's  voice  speaking  to  her  and  sa}-- 
ing,  ''  Arise,  walk  through  the  land  in  the  length 
of  it  and  in  the  breadth  of  it,  for  I  will  give  it  unto 
thee !  "  And  it  is  but  a  very  recent  fiction  that 
Maryland  was  settled  a  Roman  Catholic  colony. 

Thirdly,  our  Church's  constitution  shows  her 
the  truly  Catholic  Church  of  America.  She  is  a 
national  Church  and  as  such  is  independent  of 
foreign  rule.  It  is  far  different  with  the  self-called 
Holy  Roman  Church,  for  she  is  a  mere  exotic 
here.  She  does  not  claim  to  be  independent  of 
foreign  control.  She  is  here,  as  she  is  in  Eng- 
land, merely  an  Italian  mission,  and  she  can 
never  be  otherwise  whilst  her  Bishops  are  but 
the  creatures  of  the  Propaganda  and  the  Bish- 
op of  Rome.  Even  the  decrees  of  the  Council 
of  Trent  they  have  never  dared  to  promulgate 
here.  The  Roman  Church  amongst  us  is  there- 
fore nothing  but  a  missionary  body,  carrying  out 
the  policy  of  the  papal  court  in  Italy  under  the 
personal  supervision  of  the  alien  Archbishop  Sa- 
tolli,  and  until  she  throws  off  that  yoke  she  can 
never  be  otherwise. 


278  LECTURES   ON   CHURCH   HISTORY 

On  the  contrary,  our  American  Church  is  a 
national,  autonomous  Church,  absolutely  inde- 
pendent of  alien  potentate  or  power.  On  that 
day  when  the  first  three  American  Bishops  con- 
secrated Thomas  John  Claggett,  the  first  Bishop 
ever  consecrated  in  America,  to  be  the  first  Bish- 
op of  Maryland,  her  independent  organization 
was  openly  complete.  Since  then  she  has  been  a 
Church  whose  seed  is  in  itself  upon  the  earth. 
She  has  had  no  cause  to  lean  upon  another  for 
help.  She  has  had  no  need  to  seek  for  papal  able- 
gates or  similar  officers  not  papal  to  settle  the 
disputes  of  Bishops,  and  to  help  them  set  our 
house  in  order.  She  is,  in  fact,  the  one  Church 
here,  while  the  Roman  Church  still  remains  a 
missionary  society.  Hers  is  the  primitive  faith, 
hers,  too,  the  Apostolical  Succession  through  the 
long  line  of  Catholic  Bishops  in  the  past,  reach- 
ing even  to  the  Lord  Himself,  the  Chief  Shep- 
herd and  Bishop  of  souls. 

Thus  backward  we  have  traced  our  Church's 
history,  first  to  England  through  Norman  and 
Saxon  and  British  times,  till  we  meet  with  those 
early  apostolic  missionaries  w^ho  came  from  the 
cradle  and  source  of  all  Christianit}^,  and  through 
them  we  journey  back  to  Jerusalem.     So  far  back 


AMERICA,  THE   HERITAGE   OF   OUR    CHURCH      2/9 

do  we  easily  trace  our  lineage.  And  to  us  at 
this  day  we  hear  still  given  that  Divine  com- 
mand :  "  Arise,  walk  through  the  land  in  the 
length  of  it  and  in  the  breadth  of  it,  for  I  will 
give  it  unto  thee." 


^--■M 

,  •v^-' 


V^NV.V^V)^.- 


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